Of Paladins and Companions
by Wacko101
Summary: When Lance is fifteen years old, a madman in a box crashes on the beach near his home. And nothing is ever the same.
1. Meet the Doctor

The universe was infinite, and even the most advanced species had a limit to how far their universe reached, beyond that, was still the unknown.

Lance knew how big the universe was better than anybody.

He knew that the part of the universe Allura and Coran knew was vastly different then the universe Lance had come to know.

The part of the universe that Lance had been around.

After all, Allura and Coran had never heard of the Andromeda Galaxy, or the Milky Way Galaxy, in fact, the Galra, who had had ten thousand years to expand their empire, was still just beginning to discover the human's corner of the universe.

So yeah, Lance could understand how he had never heard about the Galra before now.

And he could understand how Allura and Coran had never heard of the Daleks.

Only now the Daleks were here, and there was no Doctor.

The team gathered in the command room, the communications screen was lit up, and the beings of Lance's nightmares were displayed on the other side.

Three Daleks, one front and center and one on each side.

And Lance felt his blood run cold.

Allura, diplomatic brave Allura, who always tried peace first had no chance against these beings.

As soon as her routine introduction was over, Lance awaited the Daleks response, because he knew he would be fighting his way out of this.

And sure enough...

 _"We are the Daleks! Prepare to be exterminated!"_

His teammate's jaws dropped at the unexpected violent response, but Lance was already heading towards the Blue Lion's hanger.

But it was too late, the Daleks, as always, had taken the first step and were already aboard the castle. A massive explosion accompanied their arrival along with the flashing red lights of the sirens as they started to wail.

Shiro, as always, reacted immediately.

"Everyone bayards out! Be prepared to fight!"

Lance did as Shiro had ordered on instinct, he doubted that his blaster, despite it being far more advanced than any earth gun, would be enough to take down a whole ship of Daleks.

Lance had to think, and he had to think fast.

And then, he saw that the com link was still up. It was all in Altean, but Lance had been in space long enough now to understand the basics.

And even though he didn't have his cell phone on him anymore, the chip in the back making it what the Doctor had called a 'superphone,' he still had the one number in it memorized.

He had starred at it for hours, in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep because he had gotten so used to the walls of the TARDIS and the faint humming sound that always seemed to echo through the walls and the floorboards.

He had starred at it when the Garrison had brought him to the brink of exhaustion when he wondered if all the frustration and pain of going through the program was worth it.

He would bring the phone out, and bring the number up, and he would star at it. His thumb hovering over the call button. His other hand fiddling with the necklace the Doctor had given him.

Wanting desperately to go back to how it had been, with the Doctor and the TARDIS, next stop everywhere.

He never pressed the call button; he knew that the Doctor was probably off somewhere, saving someone or going on some adventure. He didn't have time to entertain Lance.

And so there he stayed, back on Earth. But he had known, what was out there. And he was in the right place to get back to space, to go on those adventures again.

And so, he would stare at that number, until eventually, he had memorized it.

And now, even though it wasn't a superphone, he figured that a castle floating through space with a magic crystal powering it would have to do.

So while the others drew their weapons and moved towards the door, ready to fight, Lance ran towards the coms and dialed the one number in the entire universe that could get them out of this.

No one noticed what he had done; they had been too distracted by the door being completely disintegrated to see him making a phone call.

But the message was sent, and it was a message that the Doctor could never ignore.

Never once, in all the time that Lance had known him, had the Doctor ever ignored a call for help.

And once the Doctor had locked on to the message, he would find Lance's necklace and be able to pinpoint his exact location.

Only half a dozen Daleks entered the room, but, Lance rationalized, that was all the Daleks ever really needed when they thought they were going to win. And the Daleks always thought that they were going to win.

Keith, hot-headed fierce Keith, was swinging his sword down on the Daleks before anyone else had a chance to react.

Keith was going to die, Lance realized, there was nothing a sword could do to the armor of the Daleks. But what was worse was that Keith's actions sprung everyone else into motion.

As Lance had expected, Keith's sword bounced off the Daleks side with a loud CLANG! The shock vibrated up Keith's arm, visibly throwing Keith off and forcing him back.

Pidges weapon was also ineffective, the electricity it generated doing nothing to them, and the hook sliding off their bodies just as easily as Keith's sword had.

Hunks blaster was the most effective, hitting the Daleks in the side and forcing them back.

And still, the Dalek's moved forwards.

Lance grabbed his blaster, leveling it towards the nearest Dalek, aiming straight at the eyestalk.

The team had regrouped, back to back like they so often did in training, as the Daleks slowly surrounded them.

Allura tried talking to them again.

"Please, we had no intentions of hurting you, we were just passing through."

 _"We have no interest in your words."_ The Dalek in front of Allura responded to her, in the screeching voice that they all shared.

 _"No mercy."_

The Dalek was going to kill Allura. And after everything that Allura had been through, this was not how she deserved to die.

Lance squeezed his eyes shut. The team wasn't prepared for the Daleks; no one was prepared for the Daleks.

And their only hope was a madman in a box.

But there was no time to wait for his mad Doctor.

"Wait!" Lance yelled, retracting his Bayard. Somehow, holding a gun didn't seem right when he was talking about the Doctor, that wasn't the Doctors way.

"The Doctor." Lance blurted out, desperate to stop the Dalek from killing Allura. The entire team and Coran had shifted towards Allura; they were all doing what they had been trained to do, protect your teammate. However, Lance thought that in this moment, what they were doing was more than training. This was a more primal instinct, protect your family.

Lance's words worked.

All of the Daleks shifted their attention towards him.

 _"You know of the Doctor?!"_ The Dalek in front of Shiro screeched at him.

His teammate's attention locked onto him, looks of confusion filling everyone's faces, but Lance didn't have time to stop and explain it to them.

He had to save their lives.

"I used to travel with the Doctor." Admitting it out loud was strange, never once had Lance said it out loud, who was there to tell it to? No one he knew would understand, and anyone he did tell would think that he was crazy.

But the Daleks new what it meant.

 _"You were his companion?!"_ One of the Daleks shrieked, but Lance had long ago gave up identifying which one, because if there was one thing that Lance had learned from the Doctor, was that one way to stall for time to come up with a plan was by talking.

And Lance was very good at talking.

"That's right!" Lance said taking a step forward and feeling only a little satisfaction over the fear that was pounding in his heart when the Daleks didn't move to attack him.

He had their attention.

Lance could feel himself talking, but he couldn't hear what he was saying, just continued to rant about what he had done with the Doctor, trying to find a way out of this. But the others were still surrounded by the Daleks, despite all the attention being on him.

And then miraculously, Lance's necklace started to feel warm.

And Lance grinned, because the Doctor had always enjoyed making a bit of a flashy entrance.

"And you know what?" Lance asked the Daleks, coming back into himself as he continued to grin.

He could feel the question hanging in the air.

"I was fifteen when the Doctor crashed into the ocean and swept me up into the sky, and let me tell you; there is one thing you never, _never,_ want to do when you are an adult in charge of a child."

Lance took a step back towards his teammates, feeling their gaze bore into his back, but it didn't matter, they needed to be as close to him as possible for this to work.

"You never want to lose a child."

There was a faint sound now, and a soft wind seemed to be picking up in the room coming from nowhere.

"And you certainly never want to lose a child in space. But," Lance continued, "If you do lose a kid, you want to make sure that you can find them no matter where they've found themselves."

By now the Daleks had realized what was happening, but it was too late.

The walls were starting to materialize around them, the sound of the TARDIS had grown impossibly loud.

And then it was silent.

Lance turned around; everyone was in the box with him. Everyone had made it.

And then, Lance saw the Doctor.

The Doctor who was stepping away from his control panel, turning around to great him or to lecture him or who knows what because Lance didn't give him the chance to do anything.

Lance had already sprinted forwards towards the Doctor and wrapped his arms around him, in a big hug and had felt more like a kid then he had in a very long time as he clung onto the Doctor.

The Doctor, as always, was slow to respond to affection, carefully placing his arms around Lance as he clung onto him like a Koala and refused to let go.

"It's okay Lance, your okay." Was whispered into his ear and Lance just grabbed on tighter for a moment longer before pulling away, feeling much lighter with just those simple words.

"Lance?"

It was Hunk, his best friend through everything, who had asked so many questions just by saying his name.

Lance turned to look at them, they didn't seem scared, weary maybe, but that was understandable. The inside of the TARDIS was similar to the inside of the castleship so it wasn't much of a shock to them, not like it would have been if they had walked in through the front door. But they had almost died, only being saved after being snatched from their home. And their friend who they had trusted with their lives was hugging a strange man that appeared to be human.

Lance took a deep breath, facing everyone.

"Guy's this is the Doctor, and when I was fifteen years old, he abducted me after he crash-landed on the beach..."


	2. When Lance Met the Doctor

When Lance was fifteen, he nearly died.

His family had left him alone for the weekend, the rest of them heading off to visit family friends, leaving him to study to get into the Garrison.

And as nice as it was to be left alone for the weekend to study, and he needed to study if he was going to be accepted into the Garrison, and he had to be accepted into the Garrison. It was his dream to fly among the stars.

The stars were indescribably beautiful, and he could feel it like a pull in his gut, he had to fly through the sky someday.

He just had to.

But his family was probably surfing right now, eating ice cream and maybe even playing soccer on the beach.

And he was reading about Physics.

He had been studying for hours already, he thought to himself. Would a small break hurt? Probably not, besides, he rationed, it would only be a quick walk on the beach to clear his head. Maybe get something to eat, too.

And then he would come straight back and study.

The beach, just like the stars, was something that Lance loved. He could feel the pull of the waves around his ankles, so firm and yet so gentle.

But Lance was not fooled.

The Ocean was an ever-changing, unstoppable force and if it wished it would swallow him up and never let him go.

But Lance was not afraid.

He had never been afraid of the Ocean.

The Ocean was his home, and the stars were his dream.

So when he arrived at the beach, it was at most a two-minute walk from his house to the beach, he walked straight up to the water until his ankles were submerged and stared up at the sky.

The stars were already out, shining brightly by the thousands, it was such a clear night. The ocean lapped at his ankles, slowly sinking his feet into the sand as if asking him to stay.

And he did stay, he stayed and starred up at the sky, finding the constellations that he had known since childhood.

Except, he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

It was like a flash of light, blinding him temporarily, and it quickly had Lances full attention.

Because the flash of light had come from the sky.

But it wasn't a flash of light.

Something was crashing, and it was on fire.

Lance only managed to squeak surprise before he was diving forwards into the water to avoid the falling object that seemed to be heading straight for him.

For a minute Lance's only focus was on swimming forwards, to get away, listening as there was a tremendous BOOM! As whatever the object was made impact with the ground. Lance bobbed back to the surface, taking a breath and blinking water out of his eyes as he spun around in the water, relieved that he had left his shoes at the beaches entrance and was only swimming in his tank top and shorts and not his sneakers and jacket also.

Finally, Lance decided that nothing else was going to be falling from the sky and started trudging through the shallow water back.

Soaking wet Lance circled the object that was smoking in a crater on the beach. Whatever it was was on its side, half in the water half out, and seemed to be blue, but it was hard to tell in the distant light of the street lights and the moon.

But what Lance could see clearly was the bold lettering reading

POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX

displayed proudly on the side.

'Huh,' Lance thought 'The aliens have police. Who knew.'

Lances next thought was, 'Mierda, aliens exist!'

And then the doors to the box burst open and a wave of smoke wafted out.


	3. Good Men and Tired Eyes

**So I should have explained this earlier but this is going to more be a bunch of one shots all connected and in the same universe than an actual story. I will eventually write what happens after chapter one and how they got the TARDIS back, but not yet, I'm going to jump around a little. This is set the night after they are back on the Castle. Hope you enjoy.**

Shiro couldn't sleep.

It wasn't uncommon for him to not be able to sleep, typically when he couldn't fall asleep or fell asleep and woke from a nightmare, he would at least lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, or do a workout.

But not this time.

This time his lack of sleep was entirely his fault, he couldn't stop going over what had happened in the last day, and there were still so many unanswered questions rolling around in his head.

It didn't help that the person who had caused so much confusion was still here.

The Doctor.

Lance had asked him to stay, and Allura couldn't exactly tell Lance or the Doctor no because the Doctor had just saved all of their lives and helped them get the Castle back.

And so the Doctor stayed.

It had only been for a few hours at the most, but the Doctor wasn't shy. He had bounced around the Castle, getting into things and actually taking the time to answer all of Pidges questions.

And there had been a lot of questions.

Surprisingly, Pidge didn't seem to understand how some of the technology worked. The Doctor had tried to explain, but Pidge had been determined, and last time Shiro had checked, she was still running tests on the Doctors ship, he had called it a TARDIS.

And as friendly as the Doctor seemed, Shiro couldn't sleep. There was someone new on the Castle, and it put him on edge even if the Doctor was a friend of Lance's.

An alien friend of Lance's. A friend who had taken him up to space when he was only fifteen.

They hadn't talked about it much, only mentioning that it had happened, and had gone on to make a plan about getting the Castle back, because at the time that was what was most important.

Only now there was nothing left to distract from the fact that Lance had been taken up into space when he was fifteen.

Reasonably he knew, Pidge had been taken into space at fifteen also, but it seemed different with Lance.

Lance was too trusting, Lance had, on a whim, gone off into space.

Gone off into space with the Doctor.

Shiro wasn't exactly sure why he felt so uneasy about the whole situation, but he had a gut feeling about it.

Keith had called it his Space Dad instincts, Shiro had told him he was spending to much time with Lance and Pidge.

Shiro gave up on sleeping, and he had spent enough time training today, he wasn't like Keith who didn't know his limits most days.

So instead he got up and went on a walk through the Castle, hoping that it would help to clear his head.

Shiro wandered to the kitchen first, getting some water before making his way to the lounge. He had left his datapad in there earlier, and it had all of his books he liked to read when he couldn't sleep.

But before he could walk into the room, he realized that it was not empty.

The Doctor, who had been given a room of his own while he was here, was sitting on the couch fiddling around with some sort of machine in his hand, and next to him was Lance.

Shiro realized all at once that the Doctor and Lance had not been able to catch up earlier today, they had never been alone to talk. And while Shiro knew it was wrong, he stopped just outside the room so no one would notice him and tried to listen to what was going on inside the room.

"...Became a Paladin of Voltron." That was the Doctor talking, and he still wasn't looking at Lance.

Lance was looking at the Doctor though.

"Yeah I did, we are doing a lot of good here. But you knew that was how this would all turn out when we met, didn't you Doctor?"

The Doctor gave Lance a look out of the corner of his eye, "Spoilers." Was all that he said.

Lance grinned, and Shiro got the feeling that he was missing something.

The two sat in silence for a moment, before Lance broke the silence again.

"How long have you been traveling alone?" The question seemed to weigh heavily on Lance like he was dreading the answer.

The Doctor looked uncomfortable at the question, but also looked like he had been expecting it.

"A while."

Lance scowled a look that Shiro rarely ever saw on Lance, who was usually so cheerful and bright.

"You know you should never be alone Doctor."

This whole conversation was hard to follow for Shiro, who was an outsider to this conversation.

Then again, he was eavesdropping from the hallway so he should have expected to not understand the conversation, it wasn't like he was a part of it.

"You could come with me again."

The Doctor laid out his offer, and it sounded so hopeful even Shiro's heart hurt a little.

"You know I can't do that anymore Doctor; I have a job here to do now."

"I suppose you're right."

"You know you can always stay here or come and visit," Lance told the Doctor gently, placing his hand on his shoulder in comfort.

They sat like that for a while, and Shiro was beginning to feel uncomfortable until Lance eventually got up and left, leaving from the other door to most likely head to bed.

"You can come out now." The Doctor's voice broke through the silence that had settled upon the living room, and it startled Shiro, but he knew that he was caught and walked out into the living room to sit down across from the Doctor.

"You have known Lance for a while then." Shiro didn't phrase it was a question, and the Doctor didn't take it as one.

"He didn't explain to you?" The Doctor wondered out loud, before answering himself. "No I suppose he wouldn't, wasn't very much time and it's never easy."

"You tell me then." Shiro prompted. He still didn't feel very comfortable around the Doctor, and there was something about him that put Shiro on edge. The Doctor wasn't a very intimidating looking man by any means, it looked like a strong wind would blow him over, but even so, there was something about the Doctor that made Shiro nervous.

"I think that Lance would like to tell you all of those stories." The Doctor said it with a fond smile like he was reliving the adventures Lance and himself had been on.

Shiro couldn't find a reason to argue that point but was slightly disappointing; he wanted to hear from the Doctor's perspective along with Lances.

Instead, he asked another question, "Why shouldn't you travel alone?"

The Doctor finally looked up from whatever contraption he was fiddling with, looking straight at Shiro for the first time since he had met him.

And oh, now Shiro understood why the Doctor put him on edge, it was his _eyes_.

"They don't like it when I travel alone, think I can't take care of myself, can't handle it."

It was an honest answer, which surprised Shiro a little, but his focus was drawn elsewhere.

"They?"

The Doctor was looking back at the thing in his hands but answered Shiro anyway.

"The other people I traveled with, Lance met them all. I suppose he didn't tell you this but that day on the beach was just the beginning, I visited Lance often, he met most of the people I traveled with and tagged along lots of times."

And that was surprising news to Shiro. He had been told that the TARDIS was a time machine, which was hard to believe but it was an easier pill to swallow considering all he had seen up here in space. So he had tucked that thought away in his mind for things to freak out about later and had moved on.

Lance also hadn't given them a specific amount of time, but they all understood that he had traveled with the Doctor for longer than the one weekend. Shiro just hadn't considered that he had traveled with the Doctor more than once for long periods of time.

"But you are alone now." The Doctor winced, and Shiro almost felt sorry about it, but there was a terrible feeling settling in Shiro's stomach.

"Yes, I am."

"What happened to them?"

The Doctor's jaw clenched. "Some left me, some got left behind and some, not many but some, died."

"You're dangerous then." That wasn't a question either.

"Yes."

"Then why did you invite Lance to travel with you, more than once?"

And that was the one thing that Shiro didn't understand.

"I don't know."

The feeling started bubbling, Shiro didn't get angry often, but he could recognize the beginnings of himself turning furious at that answer. The only thing holding it off was that the Doctor kept talking.

"I never know why; I only know who, so I invite them along, and they always say yes, how could they not? But somewhere along the way, they realize that the universe is vast and wonderful and very very dark. But they are always brave, and they try and stay with me forever. Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Amy and Rory Pond, Clara Oswald, Bill Potts, and Nardole. They are just the most recent ones. I remember them all."

The Doctor paused, and Shiro could almost see him remembering everyone he ever traveled with.

"Lance met and lost them all too, but I made sure that I got Lance back home every time, he was so young, but I knew one day he would be up here, but spoilers, so I took him to the stars and showed him around."

Shiro didn't know how to respond to that, in a way it seemed like the Doctor was trying to protect Lance, but had also put him in danger. Shiro knew better then anyone what the Doctor meant when he said that space was dark. So while the Doctor had been trying to do good, it still made Shiro apprehensive, and the Doctor seemed to understand.

"I know you want me to tell you if I am a good man, but I don't know. I've been told I try to be. I know you care for all of them, and you have my word that no harm will come to Lance under my care while I am alive."

And while he still knew very little about the Doctor, just looking at him, you could tell that he was very lonely and very very sad.

The Doctor stood suddenly, stretching, tossing the little contraption in his hands from side to side, "Takashi Shirogane," The Doctor said his name, not like he knew him, but like one might say the name, Neil Armstrong.

"Black Paladin of Voltron, one of the best pilots Earth has ever produced, you should get some sleep. You have some big days ahead of you."

And as the Doctor spoke, Shiro's exhaustion seemed to catch up to him all at once, and while he wasn't sure what exactly sure what the Doctor was talking about he decided that for now, the Doctor could stay.

He might have been dangerous, but he was trying, and Shiro didn't think he was a threat to his family.


	4. Rose

Rose and the Doctor had crash-landed on the beach and swept him away with them, and he had traveled with them for nearly a month.

Rose was only a few years older than him, but Lance at the time had been short for his age, and Rose had taken it upon herself to make sure that he was taken care of.

"Because sometimes the Doctor forgets that we are human." She had told him one time while they had been in the TARDIS kitchen, making what was supposed to be Garlic Knots but was starting to seem more like dough blobs.

"You have to remind him that humans need sleep and food and sometimes need to go back and see their family."

Lance had understood all of this because the Doctor was so distinctly not human and Lance was pretty sure he didn't sleep. When he mentioned this to Rose, however, she just laughed and shook her head.

"Of course he sleeps, just not as much as we do."

"So when does he go and see his family?" He had asked Rose innocently.

Roses expression turned sad, pulling the Garlic Knots out of the space oven that cooked everything in only a few seconds.

"The Doctor doesn't have a family like you, and I do, to the Doctor we are his family."

And Lance was smart enough to understand what that meant, and he never brought it up again.

Traveling with the Doctor was fun, everything was new, and everything was exciting, and sometimes it made Lance never want to go back to Earth. But then he would remember his mother's hugs and his brothers and sisters laughter and his grandmother's stories, and he would ache to go home so badly.

So he did what he always did and went to talk to Rose.

"I miss home." He told her plainly, not sugarcoating it.

Rose had been flipping through a magazine that they had picked up from the last planet they had been on, she had called everything in it utter rubbish, but she kept it around anyway. Now though, she was giving him her full attention.

"If I go home," He began. "Just for a little while to see my family, will you make sure the Doctor comes back next weekend to get me again?"

And there it was, the reason he was so scared. He was scared that the Doctor would drop him off and leave him on Earth and forget about him.

But Rose would never let him.

"I promise." She told him, pulling him into a hug.

"Remember what I said? Sometimes the Doctor forgets that we're human. So us humans have to stick together right?"

"Right."

It had been surreal after that to get dropped off in his backyard like nothing had ever happened with the promise to be back the next weekend to go traveling again.

Lance had rushed into the house full of energy and ready to hug everyone in his family, only to be greeted to an empty house and the memory that everyone had left for the weekend and had only left him behind to let him study.

It was going to be a long week.

His family's absence had given him an opportunity to pack a bag to take with him next weekend, though. He had been using the fully stocked closet the TARDIS had had in his room, but it would be nice to have his own clothes and things while traveling next time, also his cell phone, that would be nice to have too.

His family came back for the weekend, and it was strange to sit with them and have dinner and have everyone talking about what they had done this weekend and for him to sit there and pretend like he hadn't been gone for an entire month.

The feeling didn't go away, he sat in school and looked out the window and would stare up at the sky and wonder what the Doctor was doing now, how Rose was doing, how long it would have been for them when they picked him up this weekend.

It got him in trouble, but he couldn't help doing it, he had witnessed another side to life, and he couldn't just fit back into what he had been.

And then, finally, the weekend came.

His mother had commented that he had been very energetic all day, but he couldn't help it. His bag was packed and ready to go, and as his family fell asleep that night, he crept out the back door, back into the yard to stare at the spot the TARDIS had landed in when dropping him off.

Maybe Lance thought as the night crept on, he should have tried to get a more specific time that the Doctor would be coming to get him. The weekend was two whole days long, and the Doctor could come and get him at any time.

Lance woke up the next morning to his grandmother shaking him awake and asking him what he thought he was doing camping outside with no tent.

His siblings laughed at him when his mother scolded him at breakfast after being told what he had done. Lance was just glad that they thought he was camping outside and not trying to leave.

And yet, despite his siblings teasing he crept out the back door again that night and sat in the same spot staring out at the empty backyard.

"Come on Rose." He pleaded with the empty air. "Us humans have to stick together right?"

The yard gave no response.

Lance woke to someone shaking him awake for the second day in a row. As he jerked awake, he realized that he as going to be so grounded for sleeping outside two days in a row with no tent.

His next thought was that was not his grandmother shaking him awake.

"Come on Lance," A familiar voice said in his ear. "Back to the stars."

Lance was awake immediately and was grabbing his bag as Rose helped him to his feet and off they went to the TARDIS.

"Was it nice seeing your family again?" Rose asked him as she sat on his bed and watched him unpack the bag he had brought along.

"It was nice." He told her honestly. "But it is nice coming back here too."

Rose smiled, "Yeah, I know what you mean."

And Lance knew she did.

After Lance unpacked, they went back to the control room where the Doctor always seemed to be fiddling with this or that and caught up and talked about what they had been dong while Lance had been away. It had only been a few days for them, and they had spent them visiting Rose's past. It was an emotional time for Rose as she had witnessed her dad being hit by the car that killed him, but Lance could tell that she was glad that she had been able to do it.

Lance told them that he was going to try applying for the Galaxy Garrison soon, and how his mother was nervous but supportive of him, and how his oldest sister was moving back into town with her two little kids so Lance would be able to babysit them.

Rose asked him what the Galaxy Garrison was and Lance was so startled that she didn't know what the number one program in space travel was that they completely missed the look on the Doctor's face when he mentioned the Galaxy Garrison.

Lance and Rose meanwhile were able to figure out that while the Earth that they both came from seemed familiar, Lance lived 100 years in the future compared to Rose, something that shocked them both as they had always assumed that they lived in generally the same time.

"Don't go giving Rose any more Spoilers now Lance." Was all the Doctor told him when the Doctor finally joined the conversation.

After that, they continued traveling, and soon enough Captain Jack Harkness joined them. He was a big flirt but fun to be around and Lance got to laugh at it all, as Jack never flirted with him because in Jack's own words, "He didn't flirt with fetuses."

And maybe that should have been insulting but Lance didn't mind, he made Rose happy which made Lance happy because somewhere along the way Rose had managed to find a place in his heart right next to his sister Veronica.

Lance knew he made the Doctor happy too, to see the TARDIS with people in it, people whom he loved and made him laugh.

Lance secretly thought that was all the Doctor wanted, to not be alone anymore.

Traveling with the Doctor was fun, but it was scary too. The Doctor must have taken great care in making sure Lance only went on the fun adventures the first month he was here because nothing like the Empty Child had ever happened to Lance before, but Lance knew the Doctor was important in the universe, and the universe couldn't wait for the Doctor forever.

But it was okay. Lance could be brave and save people with the Doctor, Jack, and Rose. And it wasn't all bad; they still had lots of fun.

Lance still went home after enough time had passed, only to get picked up again on the weekend by the Doctor and the others.

One time he remembered with a fond sort of confusion the Doctor, Rose, and Jack had picked him up, and Rose and Jack had asked him while they were relaxing in what passed as the TARDIS living room what he thought of big blue lions.

Lance had laughed, wondering where they came up with this stuff before asking, "Why did you see one?"

The two had just shared a look before nodding. Lance ignored it, and simply told them, "Well maybe one day I will get to see these big blue lions too."

"Maybe." Was all Rose said to him before they continued talking about what had happened while he had been gone, telling him a particularly memorable story about the Doctor getting chased down the street by a pet dog.

The second time Lance had gone home after traveling before they had ever met Jack, it had been after he had nearly died, it had been a very close call, and when they had reunited, he had gotten a relieved hug from everyone.

That weekend when the Doctor had picked him up he had given Lance a necklace.

"Don't lose it." The Doctor had told him sternly. "It's in case we ever get separated I have a way to find you, I had to harness a dwarf star to make it."

Lance, who had a good record of losing things, never lost the necklace.

One day, Lance got dropped off at his house for the week, and his mother commented that morning that he must've grown a full inch overnight.

Lance chuckled but felt terrible, what had only been around four weeks there had been months with the Doctor, Rose, and Jack.

And then one day, they didn't come to pick him up on the weekend.

At first, Lance chalked it up to the Doctor missing the date and eagerly awaited their arrival that Monday and Tuesday. And then eventually the whole week passed, and there was still no sign of the Doctor.

So Lance chalked it up to the Doctor accidentally missing a week, the Doctor was not very good with linear time, and so it was bound to happen eventually.

And then that weekend passed with no arrival, and Lance wondered fearfully if something had happened to them.

Lance refused to consider the possibility that they had simply forgotten about him, or decided that they did not want to travel with him anymore. Lance knew that that wasn't possible, that they cared for him deeply and when he had been trapped in that room with the bomb they had been so scared. And they had hugged him like his family did him when they had seen that he was okay.

So Lance waited.

It was only a few days into the second week when a noise in his room woke him up from a dead sleep.

But Lance would recognize that noise anywhere.

It was a good thing; Lance thought as he jumped out of bed to find his shoes, that his parents were currently staying at his grandmother's and that his brother slept like the dead.

The box completely materialized into Lances already tiny room, and the face that poked out of the box was one that Lance did not recognize.

It startled Lance, and the only thing keeping him from grabbing the baseball bat on the floor of his room was the familiar face that poked out next.

"Rose!" Lance yelled, rushing forwards.

"I am so glad you are okay! It's been two weeks! Where is the Doctor?"

Lance learned that Jack was gone and that the Doctor was able to change his face, after the regeneration the TARDIS had needed some time and this was the closest that they had been able to get to where they had last dropped him off.

The new Doctor was younger, had different hair and smaller ears, but his eyes were the same, and Lance continued traveling with them. The Doctor had offered to leave, he understood if it was too much for Lance, but Lance wasn't going to leave now, not because the adventures were terrific, but because he had found people he genuinely cared about. And the Doctor might have changed his face but if his eyes were the same that was enough for Lance.

And then came the Army of Ghosts.

Lance finally got to meet the infamous Jackie Tyler that had slapped the Doctor. Rose had gleefully told him all sorts of stories about her mother, and in return, Lance had told Rose all about his family even though they would probably never meet.

It was kind of comical, meeting Mrs. Tyler, she was just as Rose had described to him. But they did not have very much time to talk, as soon they were at the Torchwood Institute.

What happened after that was nothing short of an alien invasion as they tried to close the rift, people that the Doctor and Rose knew were there, but so were people from the other dimension. Lance wondered who all of these people were, but there wasn't much time for introductions.

Lance had never been to a parallel world, he hadn't been in the TARDIS for that adventure, but he had heard about it while they ate ice cream, or what tasted like ice cream in the year 5689 on top of the Crystal Spear on planet Golsdum.

But that just meant that Lance didn't have any void stuff on him. He was safe from being sucked into the Void, but Rose and the Doctor were not. Rose being sent away to the other dimension broke his heart, and when he looked over to the Doctor, he knew that both of the Doctors hearts had been broken too.

But Rose was back just as quickly as she had been sent away. She glanced at Lance, but her attention was fully pulled to the Doctor as he tried to reason with her to leave, but Lance knew that Rose would not be reasoned with as he continued to do what the Doctor had told him to on the computer.

The only reason Lance had not been sent away was because he had never been through the rift before because his entire family was still here on Earth and it would do more harm than good to send him away.

He kept working until the levers were activated and then moved to the side, crouching down in a corner and trying to get as far out of the way of any potential flying object that had Void stuff on them while the Doctor and Rose held on for their lives.

But then, the lever wasn't locked, and Lance started to make his ways towards it, not feeling the pull of the Void at all, but there were Daleks flying overhead that he had to dodge and papers being pulled through the air that was hitting him in the face, and Rose got there faster.

And then she was gone.

The Doctor wasn't crying, but then again Lance wasn't sure he had ever seen the Doctor cry, or if the Doctor had any more tears left to cry.

But Lance was there, and he hugged the Doctor until people started coming in to find out what had happened, and then he took the Doctor back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor started flipping switched and pulling levers and Lance had been traveling with the Doctor long enough to recognize when he was on a mission. He stood there next to the controls and waited for the Doctor to finish what he was doing, but when he felt the TARDIS take off he couldn't help but ask, "Where are we going?"

"To say goodbye." Was the only response that he got, but it answered all the other questions that were swirling around in his head.

It told him that Rose was gone forever and that they weren't going to be able to get her back. And it told him that he was going to be able to say goodbye.

Soon enough they had landed, and the Doctor started fiddling with something again before he was told sternly to "stand there and stay put" and then, with a click of the sonic screwdriver Rose Tyler appeared before them.

Or well, they appeared before her, it was strange, Lance could feel himself on the TARDIS, knew he was still there but was just being projected here.

The Doctor explained to Rose how they were here, which was good to know that the Doctor cared about Rose so much he would go so far as to say goodbye.

Then Rose's attention shifted to him.

"Lance, you remember that day in the kitchen, the first time we tried making Garlic Knots because you missed home?"

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Remember what I told you, and look after the Doctor for me."

Lance wanted to hug her so badly, but knew the image would be ruined so instead he smiled and said, "Of course I will."

And then Rose and the Doctor said their goodbyes, but the Doctor was cut short, and as abruptly as they appeared on the beach, they were gone and back on the TARDIS.

Lance pretended not to notice the tear traveling down the Doctor's cheek as they sat there, not knowing what to do, but feeling the loss deep in their chests.

"Alright then." The Doctor spoke first, and Lance finally looked at him, noticing that the Doctor had dried his face and was moving around the TARDIS. Lance couldn't help but see how slow the Doctor was moving in comparison to his ordinarily energetic self.

"Time to get you home."

It took Lance a moment to figure out what the Doctor meant, but once he did Lance was having none of it.

"No!" It was practically screamed at the Doctor, surprising both the Doctor and Lance himself.

"You can't just send me off after all that's happened!" Lance resisted, moving away from the Doctor as he tried to move closer to him.

"I'm not trying to send you away." The Doctor reasoned with Lance.

"Yes, you are!" Lance replied venomously. "You are trying to send me away, and Rose just told me to take care of you!"

The Doctor's face softened at that, and it seemed like all at once the fight left him.

"Can I see your phone?" The Doctor asked instead, holding his hand out.

It was from out of nowhere, and it surprised Lance enough that he was reaching into his pocket to find his phone before he realized what he was doing. The Doctor grabbed it, sonicing the back of the phone for a moment before flipping it back around and typing on the screen for a few moments.

The Doctor held it out to him, and he took it, looking at it carefully and trying to figure out what had been done to it.

"It's a Super Phone now." The Doctor told him. "And I put the TARDIS phone number in it so you can call me whenever you like. I am not sending you away Lance." The Doctor pulled him into a hug and Lance quickly hugged him back.

"You have been away for too long, and you still have a life there. I have to take you back, but don't worry." The Doctor pulled back from the hug to look him in the eyes. "I'll come and pick you up soon. You still have your necklace?"

Lance nodded.

"Then I will be able to find you."

And with that the Doctor took him home, landing in the backyard where he always did.

Lance took a tiny step outside the TARDIS, turning to look back as he did so, watching the Doctor follow him to the door but not stepping outside the TARDIS doors.

"Don't take to long Doctor?" Lance asked, timidly, sounding every bit his fifteen years.

"Won't be long at all." The Doctor promised, and with that, he was gone, and Lance watched at the TARDIS disappeared.

Lance turned back towards the house, no one was awake yet, and he let himself in quietly, walking up the stars and avoiding the creaky stairs and the toys that had been left around the house from his baby niece and nephew.

Lance made it back to his room before taking off his shoes and crawling into bed.

For a moment he just stared at the ceiling, before he let himself burst into tears.


	5. Martha

It had been exactly 16 days since Lance had seen the Doctor.

Lance had yet to call the Doctor because as angry as he had been at the Doctor for trying to get him to go home, and as much as he wanted to stay with the Doctor, he had no idea what he would actually say if he called.

Lance had cried all night after the Doctor had first dropped him off in his backyard, and he thought that was the worst he would ever feel. He thought that all the way up until the next weekend when he found himself unable to fall asleep.

He knew the Doctor wasn't coming, and he knew Rose was gone, but he still held out hope that miraculously the Doctor and Rose would show up in his backyard like they always did.

No one came, and Lance knew that this was the worst of it, the confirmation that Rose was gone forever.

He didn't cry that night, not like he had the first night. Lance laid in his bed and stared at his glow in the dark star covered ceiling and felt empty inside.

It didn't get better after that, but no one knew what Lance had been up to over the last couple of months, so there was no reason in their eyes for him to be sad, so Lance pretended not to be.

He pretended to be fine for 16 days, and then he met Hunk.

His name wasn't actually Hunk, but Lance was terrible at remembering names and really good at remembering nicknames, so Hunk became Hunk forever in Lance's mind.

Hunk was terrific, Lance had told him that he had applied for the Galaxy Garrison for the next school year and he was amazed to realize that Hunk too had applied and was waiting to hear about the school.

They were instant friends after that.

Hunk didn't actually live in the area and was only here for spring break on vacation with his family before they went home, but Lance and he just clicked, and so one day when Hunk asked him why he looked so sad, Lance couldn't help it and broke down crying again.

And Hunk really was incredible because he just scooped Lance up in his arms and held him tight as he cried his eyes out, soothing him as best he could without knowing why Lance was crying.

Eventually, Lance was out of tears and could only sit there and try and catch his breath as he let out dry sobs, and he felt ridiculous crying about this because Rose wasn't dead, but she was gone forever, and Lance missed her so very much.

Spring Break ended and Hunk left, but not without exchanging their information and the promise to be roommates if they both got into the Galaxy Garrison for next year.

And then exactly 23 days after they had lost Rose, Lance woke up to the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

Not even bothering to put shoes on he raced down his stairs and out to the backyard, nearly tripping over a potted plant in his hast he watched as the TARDIS materialized in front of him.

At first, no one came out of the box, and he was just about ready to storm inside when the door swung open.

The person on the other side was not the Doctor, and she definitely was not Rose.

Whoever it was stared right back at him and it seemed like they were locked in the most confused staring contest ever played.

Then the other door swung open, and the Doctor waltzed out.

"Doctor, who's this?"

The question left both his and the strangers mouths at the same time as they turned to address the Doctor, but they went back to staring at each other as soon as they registered that the other had talked.

The Doctor was oblivious to the confused tension that was slowly forming between the two.

"Martha Jones meet Lance McClain!" The Doctor introduced quite happily and quite loudly and all at once Lance realized that his parents were upstairs sleeping and this was not the place to be having this conversation.

"Shhh! Doctor, you will wake up my parents!" Lance whispered as loudly as he dared before pushing the Doctor back into the TARDIS.

Martha followed him out of confusion, and soon the doors were closed behind them.

For a moment Lance stood inside the TARDIS, letting himself get used to the ship again before rounding on the Doctor and bringing him into a hug.

"Doctor!" The other man's coat slightly muffled his voice. "How long has it been for you?"

The Doctor hugged him back tightly but didn't answer, but Lance knew that that meant it had been a long while since the Doctor had last seen him.

"Sorry to interrupt," Martha's voice spoke up from where she stood near the TARDIS controls. "But the Doctor said you were Lance right? How do you know the Doctor?"

"I travel with him," Lance answered, even though he was pretty sure he knew where the confusion was coming from. "He never mentioned me, did he?"

Lance couldn't help but cross his arms, but he wasn't pouting.

Martha seemed shocked. "But you are so young!"

"I'm fifteen!" Lance protested. "That's not that young!"

"Oh my gosh Doctor, he's only fifteen!" Martha rounded on the Doctor like he hadn't already known his age.

The Doctor looked like a deer caught in headlights. "Lance is a special case." The Doctor defended.

"Anyway," Lance drew the attention back to him. "As great as it is that I am fifteen, I am currently in my PJ's and barefoot, so I am going to my room to change."

He shot finger guns at them as he left, it was a habit he had picked up recently. He had done it as a joke once in front of his niece and nephew, and it had made them laugh so he had kept doing it and now it had become a habit.

Lance hurried out of the room and into the hallway, he wasn't running away from Martha exactly, his feet were actually getting cold from standing on the metal floors without socks or shoes, but it had been shocking to see a new face on board the TARDIS.

The Doctor had been away for a while, enough time to get lonely apparently, and he had met Martha and offered to take her to see the universe.

Lance couldn't blame her for saying yes.

Lance was only a little way down the hallway before he heard the footsteps following him. It wasn't the Doctor's long gate, so he figured it was Martha. He was proven right when only a second later she was walking alongside him.

"I think that we got off on the wrong foot," Martha spoke up. "I was just surprised that you popped up out of nowhere, I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but he never mentioned you."

Lance chose to ignore that, he wasn't sure why the Doctor had never mentioned him before, but Martha seemed nice, and if he was going to be traveling with her, he should probably get along with her. Instead of commenting on what she had said Lance changed the subject.

"How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?" He asked her, genuinely curious about the answer.

"Not very long."

And then, Lance came up with a brilliant idea.

"Well, you know what this means?" Lance clapped his hands together, rounding on her and smiling as she gave him an unsure smile back.

"No?"

"Sleepover!" He yelled it, throwing his hands up into the air before running down the hallway.

"Put on PJ's and grab your blankets and meet me in the living room!" He yelled back down the hallway as he came to a stop outside his room in the TARDIS.

Lances room in the TARDIS was a lot like his room at home, there were various knick-knacks and pictures scattered throughout the room and a few articles of clothing from different time periods spread around as well that Lance had never had the chance to put away the last time he was on the TARDIS. Instead of glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling, however, the Doctor had made him a living galaxy that would float around his room glowing dimly when he clapped his hands together.

But Lance wasn't here to admire his room.

Lance ripped all of the blankets off the big bed that was in his room, all of the sheets colored a beautiful blue, and grabbed a pair of warm socks for his feet before he was back in the hallway, ready for a sleepover.

Martha had changed into Pajamas and grabbed her blankets from her room but was standing in the hallway Lance had left her in looking completely befuddled about why exactly she was standing in a hallway holding her sheets while in her PJ's.

"Martha!" Lance called to get her attention.

She looked up and smiled at him, but he could tell she was nervous and unsure about this.

"I thought we were meeting in the living room?" Lance said to her as they both started to move towards where the living room was.

"I don't know where the living room is." She told Lance, sounding a bit sheepish. It surprised him that Martha had never been to the living room, when Rose had been on board they were always in the living room hanging out and having sleepovers when the adventures were over. Or in the kitchen making snacks before moving to the living room to eat said snacks.

That was the problem, Lance realized all at once. Martha was alone with the Doctor on this ship, and Lance had always had Rose and then eventually Jack.

They had been the ones to start the sleepovers, and sometimes the Doctor joined them, and sometimes he didn't.

More often then not he did.

But Martha had never been there to see that side of the Doctor, and Lance couldn't help but wonder what she did when she wasn't exploring the universe, and they were forced to take breaks.

Did she sit in her room or wander the TARDIS; sit in the control room and watch the Doctor work on his projects?

When was the last time the Doctor had taken a break from the world saving and had fun?

It was strange to Lance, to be the companion who knew the most about the Doctor. To realize that he was the one who was the more experienced of the two of them when that had always been Rose's job before.

Well, Lance thought, a sleepover is a good place to start.

"Don't worry," Lance told Martha as they walked into the living room. "The TARDIS likes me, so she normally keeps the living room and kitchen in one place when I am looking for them, sometimes she likes to move things around."

"Is that why I have trouble finding the kitchen?" Martha asked in shock as she cocooned herself in her blankets and settled down onto the couch in the living room, looking around the room curiously.

Lance followed suit, wrapping himself up in the blue blankets from his room and putting on the socks for his cold feet before smiling at Martha happily.

"Yup! And now that we are comfortable it's time to trade stories! What kind of adventures has the Doctor taken you on?"

Martha told him about a hospital that appeared on the moon, William Shakespeare the wordsmith, and New Earth that had cat nurses and old heads in jars.

"That's when he told me that he was the last, you know?" Martha whispered it quietly into the room, clutching the blanket around her shoulders and staring at one of the TARDIS emergency lights that were still aglow on the wall.

"He told me about his planet, and how wonderful it was, I think he must miss it so badly some days."

Lance curled in on himself a little, he had known about the Time War and Gallifrey and how lonely the Doctor was, and he was glad that Martha was able to recognize this in the Doctor.

"He just doesn't like being alone." He told Martha. "I think he was alone for a while, it was only 23 days for me, but I think he was traveling alone for too long. The Doctor and the TARDIS, we are all they have, and they love us, but there have been others, and they're not around anymore, they have no choice but to trust us to take care of him. The Doctor doesn't have a family like you, and I do, to the Doctor, we are his family."

Martha was silent for a moment before she spoke up.

"You traveled with her, didn't you? You traveled with Rose?"

The mention of her name made Lances eyes water, but he fought it down and answered the question, his voice only sounding a little off. "Yeah, she was like family, she always was taking care of the Doctor and me."

"I'm sorry." Martha sounded like she was upset too, whether she was upset for him or about something else Lance didn't know.

"She taught me everything she knew about the TARDIS and the Doctor, and how to use the space oven," Lance said chuckling.

"She was always saying that us humans have to stick together, so what do you say, Martha Jones, more sleepovers in the future?" Lance held his breath as he waited for a response, Martha and he had gotten off to an interesting start but he didn't want to make their travels miserable, and he hoped they would get along.

"More sleepovers in the future." Martha agreed, no doubt in her voice. "But if you know how to use anything in that space kitchen of his next time we do this we need some snacks."

Lance chuckled, feeling himself relax as he agreed.

The Doctor found them asleep on the couch the next morning, and they all made their way to the kitchen together to make waffles on what Lance called the space stove.

That day the Doctor landed them in New York, and they went on their first adventure together, although it turned out to be more of a nightmare than anything when the Daleks showed themselves.

Then they were back in the TARDIS and heading towards Martha's time.

"What year do you live in Martha?" Lance asked from his position where he was dangling from the TARDIS railing, swinging himself back and forth a little for amusement.

"What do you mean what time am I from?" Martha asked, watching him in amusement as his fingers almost slipped and he was forced to grasp the railing desperately as he regained his grip.

"Well, we might be from different times you know? What year were you born?" Lance hauled himself back over the railing as he asked this question, flopping onto the floor in a heap as he did so.

"1986," Martha said indulging him as he got to his feet.

Lance grinned widely like he had won something. "I am born about 100 years later than that, guess I'm from the future."

Martha's jaw dropped. "No way."

The Doctor chose that moment to flip the switch that would send them through time, and everyone reached out to grab onto something as they were hurtled through space and time to reach Martha's apartment in the year 2008.

They landed and started heading towards the door, Martha leading the way.

From behind her, she could hear the Doctor warn Lance, "Spoilers."

Lance laughed. "I know Doctor I haven't said anything."

The Lazarus Experiment is a disaster and Lance is relieved to step back into the TARDIS when it is all over. He doesn't realize that the Doctor and Martha haven't followed him into the TARDIS until he is already settled into the hammock the Doctor had set up for him in the control room to lounge while he worked.

He's debating between just waiting until they join him and getting up to see what's holding them up when they walk through the TARDIS door, both are smiling, so Lance isn't too worried about whatever held them up.

"Doctor," Lance says from his hammock as he makes it swing back and forth. "I think it's time for me to go home."

Martha gasps quietly from where she is leaning against the railings and Lance realizes they never explained to her how his traveling with the Doctor works, that he would be back as soon as they had the time to swing by and pick him up, and he is about to explain it to her when the Doctor nods. "I suppose it is about that time, isn't it? Don't want you gone too long. Don't need you failing another test because the last time you looked at the material was two months ago."

Lance scowled at the mention of his failed history test.

"My mother wouldn't let me leave the house for two weeks after that."

"But you did leave the house." The Doctor points out with a smirk, knowing that he had picked Lance up sometime between the first of those weeks and the second.

"Yeah, but she didn't know that." Lance pointed out before finally turning to Martha who by this point had figured out that Lance would be coming back.

"I'm still in school, so the Doctor picks me up and drops me off a lot, he is supposed to pick me up on the weekend of every week, don't let him forget me will you?" Lance asks her only half serious.

Martha grins at him. "I'd never let him forget you, us humans have to stick together, right?"

Lance beams back.

Now she is getting it.

Lance doesn't fail his history test, or his science test for that matter and manages to get through the school week with no issue. Friday night his family goes to the beach, and Lance surfs for what feels like the first time in ages.

He takes a break from surfing and helps his niece and nephew build a sand castle that resembled more than just a blob of sand. Eventually, his brother comes over to help them build the mote but the three-year-olds attention is quickly drawn from building the sand castle to destroying the sand castle, and there is nothing left of it by the time the sun sets and the family leaves the beach.

Lance hasn't stopped smiling all day, and it a nice feeling as he takes care of his surfboard and climbs into the shower and then his bed.

He wakes up the next morning, and his mom asks him to take their dog on a walk to the park, and Lance readily agrees, it's a beautiful day outside and their dog Orion, Lance had named him, was getting old and loved morning walks.

By the time they arrived at the park Orion was walking slow and seemed exhausted, so Lance found a bench underneath a tree and let the poor dog rest and sat staring out at the park and taking his time in admiring the rare moment of peace and silence.

Until someone sat down next to him.

Lance tensed and looked over, relaxing when he saw that it was just Martha.

Martha was sitting and staring out at the park like Lance had been doing only moments earlier, taking in the silence and the peace of the moment.

And then Martha spoke.

"Things went badly since we dropped you off."

Lances heart sank, and he could feel himself stop breathing.

"We ran into this man at the end of the universe, and he turned out to be another Time Lord, but he was mad. He took control of the Earth and captured the Doctor, and I got away, but I had to walk the entire Earth."

Martha was quiet, and Lance could only imagine what horrors she was reliving.

"I saved the world," Martha told him, and it sounded to him like she was still trying to believe it herself.

Lance reached out and held her hand tight as they looked out over the park. "But you're leaving," Lance told her because he knew.

"But I'm leaving." She agreed.

"I know you lost Rose," Martha began, and Lance tensed even now at the mention of Rose's name. "And I wanted to make sure that you knew I was still here for you," Martha told him quietly. "The Doctor said you have a Super Phone, and I wanted you to have my number just in case."

Martha took a deep breath in. "It feels silly, leaving him, leaving you and all of this behind. But I have to; after everything, I have to leave."

Lance still couldn't find the right words to say, so he just tightened his hold on Martha's hand. Martha hadn't been around as long as Rose had, but she had just as quickly come to find herself a place in his heart right next to Rose and Veronica.

"And listen here, I gave the Doctor a phone I could call if I ever needed him, and you better make sure that he answers it."

Lance chuckled but agreed, and Martha kept going.

"I was going to leave, but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye. And I remembered what you said about the Doctor not liking to be alone, so I made him come by here so I could see you, and so maybe the Doctor wouldn't have to be alone."

Lance pulled Martha in for a hug, and she hugged him back just as fiercely.

He would miss her, but he could always talk to her if he needed to, and this wasn't a goodbye.

She said he would see her again.

And he believed her.


	6. Big Blue Lions

The TARDIS landed with a dull thud, and Rose straightened herself up from where she was leaning against the console, watching out of the corner of her eye as Jack and the Doctor did the same.

Lance was with his family right now, going to school and babysitting and whatever else it was that Lance did when not in the TARDIS.

They would be going to get him soon; they never let to much time pass in the TARDIS before going to retrieve him, they liked to keep their timelines in synch as much as possible to keep things less confusing for them all.

"Where are we, Doctor?" Rose wondered, the trip had seemed shorter than usual when they were going to the future, the Doctor had promised to take them to the planet Delirums so they could see the Universe's tallest reverse waterfall, which was bright green.

"I don't know." The Doctor said, running around the TARDIS controls trying to get information.

"We aren't on a planet. I think the TARDIS took us to a ship, only 100 years in the future."

They looked at each other for a moment, before they all broke out into grins and started towards the door.

The inside of the ship looked like all ships in the future seemed to, metallic and dark, there was no one in the hallway they had materialized in, but in the air, there was a sense of unease.

"Doctor, what kind of ship is this?" Rose asked as they began to wander in a random direction down the hallway.

"Not sure, it's not human design though." The Doctor told them. "Although it does seem rather familiar."

And then, suddenly they weren't alone in the hallway anymore.

Two robot-like beings were walking down the hallway towards them, and both had a gun in hand.

"Run!" The Doctor yelled, and Rose and Jack wasted no time in listening to him as they turned and bolted down the hallway back towards where they had come.

Suddenly the ship lurched to the side, tilting and making the three scramble to hold onto something so they wouldn't be tossed against a wall.

"The ship got hit by something!" Jack yelled as they all managed to straighten themselves and keep running.

Four more of the robot like beings appeared in front of them and the group was forced to make a turn to avoid them but were also forced to run the opposite direction of the TARDIS.

"Not just by something!" The Doctor yelled as he soniced a door ahead of them open and they found themselves in an abandoned observatory deck. "They are being attacked!

In front of them stood a beautiful castle looking ship that was firing heavily upon the ship that they were standing on.

"Okay," Rose said taking in the ship in front of them and the many tiny ships that were flying around outside trying to return fire. "So why are they attacking?" Rose asked the Doctor.

The Doctor, however, was starring at the castle-like ship that was still firing at the ship, but now the shields were up so that the attack stalled momentarily.

"That's an Altean ship." The Doctor said aloud, but only Jack knew what that meant.

"No way," Jack said excitedly. "Does that mean we might get to see Voltron?"

"Wait hold on." Rose sounded very confused and seemed to be the only one who didn't know what an Altean was. "What is Voltron and why are they firing at us?"

The Doctor seemed to snap out of it. "That is the question isn't it Rose? That is a ten-thousand-year-old Altean ship, one of those haven't been around since the very beginning of Voltron's rebirth. So what is it doing here, and why is it firing at us?"

The Doctor started out into space for a moment. "Oh! We are only one hundred years in the future!"

Rose nodded. "Yeah what's that got to do with anything?"

But Jack seemed to have caught on.

"Oh, no way. Does that mean what I think it means? That we managed to find ourselves in the middle of the beginning of the Coalition?" Jack was grinning brightly.

The shield that was around the ship gave way, and the ship rocked violently again as the laser hit the ship, stopping after only a few moments.

"Correction," The Doctor told Jack grimly. "We have found ourselves in the middle of the war between the Galra and the Voltron Paladins. And we are on a Galra ship."

Jack's smile slipped off his face. "We should probably get going then."

The Doctor nodded, and they carefully made their way out of the observation deck and backed out into the hallways. Thankfully all of the robots from before were gone, and they were able to start making their way back to the TARDIS.

Only when they arrived in the hallway, they found that the wall had been blasted open and the TARDIS had been sucked outside.

"Now what?" Rose asked as they retreated from that hallway and back into the safety of the next one.

"Doctor I don't mean to be pessimistic," Jack told him. "But Voltron doesn't normally loose against these guys. And this is not a good spot to be."

The Doctor opened up his mouth to retort when they heard the sound of footsteps coming their way.

"So far the distraction is working." There was a voice, low and muffled like they were trying not to be heard.

The three glanced at each other before nodding and moving towards the voice.

Peeking around the corner, they found that the source of the voice, the person was small and wearing green armor and was currently hunched over a control panel she had pried open.

Next to her standing guard was an imposing figure in black armor. Neither seemed to be carrying any weapons.

"That is our way out." The Doctor told Rose and Jack.

"The Paladins of Voltron," Jack whispered, and Rose would've sworn that there was something like awe in his voice.

"Follow my lead." The Doctor told them and then stepped around the corner and into the hallway directly into the line of sight of the man in black armor.

"Hello!" The Doctor and the black armored man immediately settled into a fighting position, his right arm glowing purple as he took them in as Rose and Jack were forced to follow the Doctor into the hallway.

The green figure paused in whatever they were doing, taking a minute to look up before the black figure told her, "Keep going Pidge, I will handle this."

Rose didn't like the way that sounded.

"They look human Shiro." The green figure, Pidge, voice sounded young, and Rose couldn't help but think of Lance.

"Can't trust that Pidge." The Black figure, Shiro said before turning his attention back to them.

"Who are you?" Shiro asked, voice demanding.

The Doctor wasn't put off by this, however. "I'm the Doctor. And these are my companions, Jack and Rose."

Shiro's eyes seemed to widen for a moment before looking at the Doctor carefully, not dropping his stance as he looked at them.

There was a small beeping sound as whatever Pidge had been doing to the ship finished and she stood up, standing behind Shiro and looked over them too.

"He did say he could change his face," Pidge said to Shiro, and finally it seemed Shiro found what he was looking for because he stood up and nodded at them.

"Follow us."

Not sure what was going on but realizing that the Paladins were going to help them, the trio followed close behind.

"Where are you ship Doctor?" Pidge asked as they ran through the hallways, the two Paladins knowing where to go.

"It got sucked out into space!" The Doctor told her, still sounding to cheerful for the situation. He then asked his question. "So do you already know me?"

Pidge nodded. "We've met once before. But you looked different."

The Doctor nodded. "That happens sometimes."

Finally, they arrived at where they were headed, and Rose and Jack came to a full stop upon looking up and seeing a Lion for the first time.

The Lion before them was green and had what looked like a shield on it's back. The air around the lion smelled like grass and plants and the air around the lion seemed ancient, like a star.

As they all approached the Lion bent down, opening its massive jaws to let them inside and they all ran in, stopping only when they were in what Rose assumed was the cockpit.

"The Green Lion is the smallest of the lions," Jack whispered into Rose's ear as Pidge got to work on getting them out of the Galra ship.

"Seriously?" Rose whispered back, feeling slightly cramped in the cockpit with so many people despite the lion's massive size.

"Everyone in the future knows about Voltron," Jack told her. "When I was a kid I had all of their action figures. To see the beginning of everything, the Paladin's that brought peace to the universe. We are meeting living legends."

Rose looked back at the green and black figures in front of them who were talking into their communicators and not very focused on them at all.

"How many of them are there?" Rose wondered to Jack, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that these people in front of her were so famous.

"Five, but the palad-"

Jack was cut off when Shiro and Pidge turned back to them, the Doctor, who up until that point had been listening to what the Paladins were saying now joined them again.

"We contacted the Castle to let them know we were heading back. We will find your ship once the Galra Cruiser leaves." Shiro, the Black Paladin, was the one who spoke and Rose suddenly remembered that these people had met the Doctor before and wondered how they had met, or how well they knew each other.

They landed quickly and Rose suddenly found herself standing with the others in a brightly lit, nice looking ship in a room that was more than large enough for the massive Lion behind her.

Shiro and Pidge led them from the room and out into a hallway which they started quickly moving down.

"We are heading towards the Bridge, the rest of the Paladins will meet us there along with the Princess and her Royal Advisor Coran. From there we can find your ship and retrieve it when it is safe." Shiro told them kindly.

Now that they were off the Galra ship Shiro seemed much kinder, his muscles and scars not making him look as intimidating as before, which was helped by the small smile he was sporting.

Pidge too seemed a lot younger she looked to be no older than 15, and it took Rose a moment, but she finally realized what had been bugging her this whole time.

"Wait, are you both human?" It was only after she asked that she realized that it might sound a bit rude, but the two didn't seem to mind.

"Yes, we are, and we are assuming that you are as well?" Shiro spoke again, as Pidge seemed to have lost interest in her guests for the time being and was going over whatever was showing on the screen that was built into her suit.

"Yeah, my name is Rose." She told the man, and Jack was quick to step up.

"My name is Captain Jack Harkness but you can-"

The Doctor cut him off. "Nope. Not doing that."

Jack pouted. "Come on Doctor I was just saying hello."

Whatever the Doctor was going to say in response Rose never found out because they had arrived at the Bridge.

It was a massive room with chairs scattered around and a large window at the front, and two figures in no armor that were clearly not human and three figures in armor, colored red, yellow and blue respectively.

Walking into the room, the alien with long white hair turned towards them with a smile. "Welcome back Paladins! I take it your mission was successful? And these are the guests you mentioned?"

Shiro and Pidge walked to what seemed to be their designated spots in the room, as the others in armor turned to greet them. They all had helmets on so Rose couldn't make out their faces, but she was almost sure that they were all human.

Shiro nodded to the Princess and brought everyone's attention to their guests. "Paladins this is-"

Shiro got cut off as the Blue Paladin quickly stood and moved towards them.

"Rose, Jack."

Rose froze hearing her name come from a strangers mouth, not knowing what to do or why this person knew her, Jack seemed to be in the same position.

The Paladin seemed to sense their confusion as seconds later he was hurrying to remove his helmet.

He was much taller, his face had finally lost the rest of the baby fat that had still clung to it, his hair was cut differently, and there were traces of stubble along his jaw but Lances eyes were the same, maybe a little older, a little wiser and perhaps even a touch sadder, but it was Lance.

Even still, she couldn't help the small, "Lance?" That left her mouth, expressing her shock and disbelief in seeing the other.

Lance had opened his arms for a hug, exactly like he did when they were picking him up from his house to travel with the Doctor.

Rose moved without meaning to, the action so familiar that it was like muscle memory, wrapping her arms around the man before her, and for the first time, pulling him down instead of up into a hug.

Lance returned the hug fiercely, clinging onto her and so swept up in his joy, actually managing to lift her feet up off the ground.

Then after he set her back down on the ground, he swept Jack up into a hug, too.

Eventually, Lance had calmed down enough that he was able to explain to his very patient teammates who they were.

"This is Jack and Rose." He told them, his entire body shaking with excitement. "I traveled with them for a long time on the TARDIS with the Doctor."

That seemed to make them understand, at least partially but the Doctor took the time to make sure everyone kept their future knowledge to themselves.

"Don't need to be knowing what is going to happen in our futures." He told them seriously. "It could tear a hole in the universe."

They all seemed to understand, Pidge and the Yellow Paladin who introduced himself as Hunk, especially seemed to understand.

Shiro was looking at them like he knew exactly who they were and Roses wondered if he knew more than the others.

She didn't get a chance to talk with them very much however because Lance had enthusiastically swept them away from the room to give them a tour of the castle.

Jack was just as enthusiastic about everything, running ahead with Lance as he explained about an invisible maze that they used to train and Rose couldn't help the smile that spread across her face watching Jack fangirl over the castle that he had only read about in stories. Lance was happy to indulge him, proudly show everything in the castle off.

The Doctor walked next to her, taking in the view of the Castle as they followed the two boys.

"How old is Lance now?" Rose asked the Doctor, not looking away from Lance as she did so.

"I would say he is about 18 or 19 now, which means he has been in space for a year to a year and a half."

"He is fighting in a war," Rose told him as though the Doctor didn't already know.

"Yes. He is." The Doctor was honest with her, which was good, Rose needed to know what was going on, how Lance had found himself to be here and why her little brother was fighting in a war at the age of 19.

The Doctor told her about the Alteans and how the two aliens on the Bridge had been frozen in time for 10,000 years and thought themselves to be the last of their kind and about the making of Voltron and the eventual fall of the Black Paladin Zarkon.

"Lance saves the Universe." He told her like it was supposed to make any of it better.

"You knew." She accuses him as Lance joyfully lead them into a large room that was set up to look like Earth with a cow sitting in the middle of it all. Lance proudly introduced them to Kaltenecker his cow, and Rose smiled at Lance as brightly as she could when he turned to look at her for her reaction.

Lance smile faltered slightly looking at her, and Rose knew she hadn't fooled him, but he continued to talk to Jack and explain how they had acquired a cow in space.

"I did." The Doctor told her after Lance's gaze had slid away.

"We crash landed on that beach, and I knew exactly who he was, but the TARDIS had brought us there for a reason, so I took him away and showed him the stars. I taught him as much as I could, I showed him the wonders of the universe and its deepest darkest corners. All the while knowing that one day I was going to send him off to war."

Rose listened to the Doctor's words carefully. "You didn't send him off to war." She told him.

"He was going to end up here no matter what. The Blue Lion was going to choose him and all the others no matter what weren't they?"

The Doctor nodded.

"All you did was prepare him, take him on a few adventures and teach him some things. You couldn't have changed the outcome. Just like we couldn't save my dad from dying."

Rose understood this now, even if her heart ached at the thought of Lance fighting in a war for the universe, traveling with the Doctor wasn't much different.

"Just tell me this." She turned towards the Doctor now, letting Lance and Jack get ahead of them as they stopped in the hallway. "Does Lance make it? Does he get out of this alive?"

The Doctor studied her for a moment.

"I can't tell you to much about the future, Rose. You know that."

"Stop that Doctor!" Rose scolded him. "I am not asking how they win the war or how they lose it so I can go off and tell everybody. I am asking if Lance makes it through the war alive if he ends up happy. I am asking for me to know, not Lance."

Rose was desperate to know, one way or the other.

"Lance McClain lives to be 87. And dies on August 14th surrounded by his friends and family. He died on Earth; it was raining. As far as I am aware, he died very happy."

The Doctor paused, offering his hand for her to take. "He ended a war and saved the universe when I couldn't. You should be very proud."

Rose took the Doctors hand, using her other to wipe away a stray tear that was sliding down her face.

"I'm always proud of him. But I worry too."

The Doctor squeezed her hand in comfort, and they quickly caught up to Lance and Jack, who had been about to go back and search for them.

"There you are!" Lance was beaming. "I have someone you need to meet!"

The room Lance led them into was as large as the one the Green Lion had been left in, but the Lion that sat in the center of the room was larger than the Green Lion.

"Meet Blue," Lance told them before walking forwards into the room, causing the Lion's eyes to light up, the metallic tail of the lion wagging back and forth.

The air around the Green Lion had smelled like grass and plants, the air around the Blue Lion smelled like the ocean, and if Rose closed her eyes, she could imagine herself laying on a beach on Earth, feeling the ocean breeze and the salt in the air.

The Blue Lion reminded her of Lance.

Lance introduced them, and Rose felt only a little ridiculous greeting a metal lion.

Shortly after introductions were made Lance's armor comms, which he hadn't gotten a chance to change out of, went off.

Lance answered, and Pidge's voice floated out.

"Hey Lance, we found the TARDIS, and I am sending you it's location for pick up."

"Roger that Pidge, thanks."

Lance turned towards the Blue Lion.

"Here that girl? We get to do some flying!"

The Blue Lion opened its jaws and lowered to the ground, and Lance ran into the ship, only pausing to call for them to follow.

The inside of the Blue Lion was bigger than the Green Lion. Everything was hued blue also, so color coordinating was a big thing apparently.

Rose had listened to a younger Lance talk about flying often, it had always been Lance's dream to fly amongst the stars, and as she watched him so effortlessly fly them out of the hanger and towards the TARDIS location, she couldn't help the pride that welled up within her.

The TARDIS was in perfect condition as always, being sucked into a space war couldn't even land a scratch on the paint, and Lance was able to scoop the ship up in the Lion's massive jaws easily.

"You might want to go land the TARDIS on the ship Doctor; once we are back on the Castle, it will be hard to get the TARDIS out of Blue's mouth."

Only a few minutes later Rose, the Doctor, Jack, and Lance were standing in front of the TARDIS in the Blue Lion's hanger, and the other Paladins and Princess Allura and Coran were on their way down to say goodbye to them.

"You can't stay any longer Doctor?" Lance asked, looking like he wanted them to stay forever.

"We shouldn't stay too long, the longer we stay, the more we risk someone saying something we aren't supposed to know yet."

Lance seemed to have been expecting that answer but was disappointed anyway. Jack and Lance hugged.

"Guess you aren't a fetus anymore, but I still am not flirting with you." Lance laughed and gave him a shove.

"Your lines wouldn't work on me anyway."

Lance and the Doctor hugged and exchanged a few whispered words that Rose couldn't make out.

And then Lance was in front of her.

"Hopefully everything is okay?" He asked her, and she remembered that he had been worried about her when they had been visiting Kaltenecker and she had been talking to the Doctor.

"I was just concerned about you, is all." She told him pulling him into a hug.

"You've grown up so much." She told him, reminded once again of how tall he was now when she was forced onto the tips of her toes to hug him properly.

"I haven't changed that much." He told her, but Rose knew that wasn't true.

"Just be safe." She responded.

"I will be, and I know you didn't get to meet the team properly, but they look after me."

"Good."

The rest of the team arrived and wished them goodbye, and then they were back on the TARDIS, flying away like the last few hours had been a dream.

Rose stood near the TARDIS controls unsure of what to do next, lost in thought about a space war only a century into her future. A beep from the TARDIS controls was what pulled her out of her thoughts.

The timer that they used to count down to when they would go and pick Lance up was going off. They had the device so they wouldn't get carried away and travel too long without him.

Rose looked at the timer, still feeling dazed from the day's events. Jack went and turned it off, looking at her worriedly as he did so.

Jack, Rose remembered, had been trained in time travel, which was why he was barely phased at all if a little in awe at meeting his heroes and finding out the tiny kid that they traveled with was one of them.

Rose wasn't trained in how to deal with these situations, but she had been traveling with the Doctor for a long time now. So when the Doctor came around the controls saying, "We can wait, if you need, just a few more days to go and get him. He won't know the difference."

Rose shook her head clearing her thoughts. The Doctor had told her Lance would be okay, so Lance would be okay.

"No, we should go and get him now."

Only a few minutes later they had landed and Lance, short young Lance, burst through the TARDIS doors, already rambling about what they were going to go and do next.

Rose wanted so badly to tell him what she knew.

Wanted to tell him how one day he would apply for the Garrison like he had always dreamed, and would get in, only to get launched into space and fight in a war.

She wanted to tell him that he would get tall and muscular and pilot one of the best ships in the entire universe.

She wanted to tell him that he was going to be a hero and make so many friends and own a cow named Kaltenecker.

She wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, that they would win and be happy.

She wanted to tell him that he was going to need to be very very brave.

But she told him none of these things.

She instead listened to Lance talk about his family, and the new words his niece and nephew had learned without a single clue to what awaited him in his future.

And realized this was how the Doctor felt all the time.


	7. Donna

They drop Martha off at a park near her house, Martha must have already said her peace with the Doctor before they had gone to visit Lance because she just hugged the Doctor, gave him one last meaningful look.

And then she was gone.

For a moment Lance doesn't know what to do or what to say.

But he knew the Doctor didn't like endings, and Lance was here to keep him company so he figured they should do what they always did.

"Want to go on an adventure Doctor?" Lance asked, hopping over to the control console and putting his best smile on his face.

Martha wasn't dead, and they could contact her at any time, there was no reason to be sad, so Lance acted happy for the Doctor's sake.

At Lance's voice, the Doctor seemed to break out of whatever thought he had been stuck in, turning towards the console himself, giving Lance a smile in return.

"Well," The Doctor began and just by his tone of voice he knew that the Doctor already had an adventure in mind. "Someone has created a diet pill that actually works."

Lances eyebrows shot to his hairline. "If that isn't suspicious I don't know what is."

"Want to go check it out?" The Doctor was already fiddling with a few buttons.

"Of course." Lance grabbed onto the railings as the TARDIS took off.

Adipose Industries was a big building that was mostly windows that had security guards and cameras which was no problem for the Doctor but was a problem for Lance because as far as anyone in there was concerned, there was no reason for a child to be in the building. And unfortunately, Lance was still very much fifteen and short for his age.

"I will be in and out." The Doctor promised him. "I only need to get some information, and you can come with me after it's closed."

"Fine," Lance said sitting on a bench outside the building. "But if people start screaming and running outside you better know I'm coming in to get you."

The Doctor grinned. "I would be disappointed if you didn't."

The Doctor turned to walk away before pausing and turning back to him. "Don't wander off." The Doctor told him, and then he was gone.

Lance waited a moment, making sure the Doctor was gone before getting up from the bench and began walking to the front of the building.

The Doctor should know better than to think that Lance was going to sit on a bench all day while he was investigating.

Lance easily walked through the front doors, looking around curiously as he made his way to the front desk. There were two women there, each about his mom's age which would make this easier.

Lance had figured out a long time ago that if you acted like you were supposed to be there, no one would question you.

One of the ladies looked up from her computer when she walked up to the front desk, and Lance gave her a broad smile.

"Hello there, what can I do for you?" The women behind the counter looked both concerned and confused as to why he was there.

"My mom works here, and she accidentally took my school folder into work with her, could I go and pick it up?" Lance wasn't sure what time it was or if an average kid would be in school still but he could only hope that this lady wouldn't give his story too much thought.

The lady, however, was already getting up to show him to the elevators. "What is your mom's name? Do you know what floor she would be on?" The lady was asking him as he eagerly followed her to where she was leading him.

He hadn't thought the plan through, so he had no answers to her questions but came up with something on the spot.

"Her name is Rose McClain," Lance blurted out the first thing that came to mind in a panic. "She said something about a meeting today, so I don't know what floor she would be on."

Lance could only hope the lady didn't start questioning him, or ask what the meeting was about because Lance had no information to give her. Luckily for him, however, there seemed to be one meeting in particular that stood out today for the company.

"The Adipose Pill meeting?"

Lance nodded, any meeting would probably work, meetings meant information and Lance only really needed a way to get from the lobby into the building, any floor would work.

The lady swiped her card in the elevator and pushed a button for him, and Lance was in.

Wherever the meeting had been on this floor, Lance had missed it. Lots of people were all walking out of one room holding papers and jotting down things on notebooks at the last minute.

Lance frowned as he realized that he wouldn't get to hear about the meeting but quickly realized that while people were distracted with their papers and notes right now they wouldn't be for long and once they noticed him they would start to wonder why he was there and ask questions that Lance had no answer for.

So he quickly walked around the corner of the hallway and continued down it, trying to look as tall and mature as possible.

The hallway leads to an office space that had tiny cubicles and a potted plant sitting near a printer. Everyone who was at a desk was to busy looking at their computer screens and talking into their earpieces to glance up and notice him, so Lance wasn't too worried about walking over to an empty cubicle and sitting in the chair.

Now he was out of the way enough that no one would notice him unless they were looking for him, and Lance had access to a computer and whatever papers were on the desk.

There wasn't much, whoever usually worked here obviously hadn't come into work that day or had been fired, but it didn't matter much as Lance's attention was immediately drawn towards the blond women who was addressing the room.

Lance winced as she finished her little speech and once again made a promise to himself that he would not be working a business job, that somehow some way he would get into flying. The Garrison was his first choice of course, but he wasn't sure if he had gotten in yet.

Lance was about to go back to trying to break the filing cabinet under the desk open when a red-headed woman caught Lance's attention. Lance wasn't sure why his eyes were drawn to her, she was wearing business clothes like everyone else and was picking papers up from the printer, but something about her was shifty like she wasn't supposed to be there.

Lance was interested immediately. She was the first thing about this place that didn't seem right, and he was going to find out why.

Standing up from the desk that he had been sitting at he quickly followed her back down the hallway and to the elevators. She pushed the button to go down, and Lance walked up next to her. She glanced over at him quickly before looking away, only to realize what she had seen and glanced back at him confused, wondering why a child was here.

She must have decided that it wasn't any of her business because she didn't ask and they got on the elevator together.

The doors closed and Lance turned towards her, trying to hold back the smirk as he asked. "So why are you snooping around Adipose?"

The women startled slightly, her eyes only widening a little as she fished in her pocket and brought out an ID that she flashed at him to quickly to read it.

"Health and Safety." She told him and then turned away like she was trying to pretend he didn't exist.

"Liar." Lance practically sang as they stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby again.

The women practically bristled and started quickly walking away from him, and he grinned as he trotted after her, giving a wave to the lady behind the desk as he did so.

He quickly caught up to the women as she got to the street.

"You're looking into the diet pills, and you think there is something wrong." He told her as she opened her mouth to most likely yell at him to go away. The women's mouth closed with a snap, and Lance knew he had been right, which was a relief because he hadn't been entirely sure.

"How do you know?" Her tone was snarky, but Lance could tell that he had her attention.

"Because," Lance grinned. "There is absolutely something wrong, and you aren't very sneaky."

Lance followed Donna to a nearby café, and she explained everything she had found out about the pills.

"What I don't get is why," Donna told him as she took a bite out of her food. "I know that something is going on, but everyone seems to say that the pill works."

"Then why investigate?" Lance asked as he took a bite out of his food, looking through the papers that this lady had managed to get.

"Because it seems weird and unnatural, and I'm looking for someone who is drawn to the weird and unnatural."

Lance chuckled, it sounded like the Doctor.

"So what about you?" The lady, he still needed to ask for her name, asked. "Why were you there, and how could you tell I was lying so quickly?"

Lance shrugged. "A friend of mine is looking into it too, but told me to stay outside because a kid tends to attract too much attention, but I don't like sitting around, so I found my own way in." Lance leans back in his seat. "And I knew you were lying because you looked way too shifty, it was obvious you weren't supposed to be there, everyone else was just too distracted working to notice."

"I think you are just too observant for your own good." The lady tells him, and Lance snorts because that was the first time anyone had ever called Lance observant.

"Donna." The lady, Donna, told him, holding her hand out.

Lance shook it, grinning happily again. "Lance."

"Nice to meet you, Lance, how would you like to go visit a client of Adipose with me?"

OoO

Stacey was nice, and now she was dead.

Donna had pushed him away from the bathroom before he could enter, her face pale and eyes wide.

"The fat just walks away." She told him solemnly, and Lance realized that it was a lot more than just a catchphrase.

But she pushed him out of the bathroom, and Lance realized that they were following whatever form the fat had taken.

But Donna didn't seem to know where exactly it had gone and eventually they found themselves standing in front of Stacey's apartment watching an empty cab drive away.

Donna seemed a bit dazed but eventually started walking down the street, and Lance could do nothing but follow her, having nowhere else to go and no idea how to get back to the TARDIS.

Eventually, the Doctor would find him, he was still wearing his necklace after all, but Lance had a feeling that the Doctor was a little distracted by whatever was going on at Adipose. It was fine, Lance would figure something out for tonight and go back tomorrow and would eventually run into either the Doctor or the TARDIS.

Donna didn't seem to realize that he was still there until they were standing in front of a house and she was going to open the door.

"This is going to go over well." Was all Donna said before opening the door, and Lance was introduced to Sylvia Noble.

Lance was introduced as one of Donna's friend's nephews who had no place to go for a night and was sat down at a table by Mrs. Noble, being given something to eat and drink before being ignored by Mrs. Noble in favor of her ranting at Donna.

It was impressive to Lance how Mrs. Noble could talk for so long while doing other things around the house, what was more impressive to Lance was how Donna could sit there and listen to it.

Eventually, Donna went to see her grandfather and Lance was shown to a guest bedroom.

The next morning Donna piled him into a small blue car and Lance was given instructions to go and sit in the bathroom until Donna came and got him.

Lance stared at her for a moment. "You'll come and get me out of the men's bathroom?"

Donna rolled her eyes. "Everyone will be gone anyway. Just stay quiet, and no one will know you are there."

Waiting in the bathroom was the most boring thing Lance had ever done, but he stuck it out because there was no other way to sneak into the building without the Doctor quickly.

When Donna came to get him, she told him to be quiet as she led him somewhere, trying to quietly explain what had happened while she had been hiding in the bathroom.

They slinked through the door, staying quiet and Donna looked through the window, as they strained to hear what was going on. Lance didn't understand how a pill was the spark of life, but from Donna's description of what had happened to Stacey, things were starting to make sense.

Lance wished he was tall enough to see through the window like Donna was.

Suddenly, Donna seemed very distracted and looked like she was trying to communicate with someone through the window, which confused Lance because who would Donna be trying to talk to?

Her hand gestures quickly became more and more elaborate, and suddenly she froze, before grabbing his shoulder and pulling him after her as she started to run away.

"Donna what's going on!" Lance shouted as they ran through hallways.

"They saw me!" Donna elaborated even though that didn't explain who she had been talking to.

They quickly made it to the stairs before running up them, gunshots were fired from somewhere below, and Lance and Donna quickened their pace.

Turning a corner, they quickly ran into a familiar face.

Immediately Lance felt better seeing the Doctor but was surprised and confused when Donna embraced the Doctor in a hug which the Doctor quickly returned.

The Doctor spots him standing behind Donna and ends the hug, turning towards him and pointing a finger.

"You weren't supposed to wander off!"

Lance only has time to smirk back at the Doctor, and Donna just had time to ask a confused, "You two know each other?" Before they are reminded that they were being chased and they continue to run up the stairs.

From there it is mostly running for their lives while trying to save the millions of lives of the people who had already tried the Adipose pill and there isn't much room for explanations.

Finally, they are on the sidewalk, waving at fat and not long after that they are back on the TARDIS, moving Donna's bags to where her room will be.

"Your room is across from Lance's; the TARDIS likes him so if you ever need to find anything you can always ask him."

Donna seems to be taking it all in still, as she gazed around the room in awe.

Donna's room looks similar to Lance's room, metal walls, ceiling and floor with a large bed. But Lance had had months to personalize his room and collect knick knacks to place on the dresser and shelves.

Setting down Donna's bags, Lance doesn't think it will take Donna long to personalize her room either.

They all set out to show Donna around the rest of the TARDIS when Donna finally seems to remember that she had lots of questions.

"How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?" She asked Lance as they walked down the metal hallways, the hum that the TARDIS made echoing on the metal and creating a wonderful sounding noise, if a bit metallic.

"Months at this point I think."

They passed the kitchen, and Lance's stomach growled as he realized that he hadn't eaten much today.

"Doctor," Lance questioned, and the Doctor stopped walking to look at Lance. "Could you make chocolate chip cookies?"

Soon enough Lance and Donna found themselves sitting at the counter of the kitchen watching as the Doctor started putting together cookies for them to eat.

"You wouldn't think the Doctor would be good at cooking," Donna says to him quietly as she clutched a mug full of hot chocolate between her hands, watching as the Doctor mixed ingredients together. She seemed so shocked Lance couldn't help the little laugh that escaped him as he drank his mug of hot chocolate.

"The Doctor can cook some things, not a lot of things but some things, but his chocolate chip cookies are the best," Lance told her, understanding that up until now she had only seen the Doctor as this incredible man who chased down aliens and saved people. Martha had been surprised too at how human the Doctor could seem most days, and Lance remembered the time he had had that realization also, and how Rose had laughed at him a little when he had wondered the same thing out loud.

"The Doctor before him could cook way better, I don't know the science behind it but the first Doctor I traveled with could make these amazing meals," Lance remembered those days fondly, since the Doctor's regeneration Lance had been learning how to make foods, he wasn't an expert, but he could at least help the Doctor make meals now.

Donna looked confused, but Lance shrugged and started explaining regeneration to her. The Doctor soon came over with a plate of cookies and glasses of milk and Lance learned how the Doctor and Donna had met.

"You just missed me then," Lance told her. "I had just been dropped off at my house when you showed up."

Donna just shook her head. "Incredible." She said out loud before biting into her cookie.

The next morning there is a knock on his door, and Lance knows it must be Donna as he goes to open it. She is wide awake and already dressed for the day and Lance yawns as he looks at her.

"Can't have you sleeping in all day! Come on the Doctor says he has the perfect place for us to go and you need to be awake to see it.

Before long Lance is standing in the middle of Pompeii with the volcano about to explode and Lance wonders when this had become so normal for him.

What is not normal is for them to lose the TARDIS with Mt. Vesuvius about to explode.

What is also not normal is the feeling of helplessness when the Doctor tells them that they can't do anything about the volcano and that it has to erupt. Lance can understand what the Doctor is saying; he knows that the Doctor would never not do everything that he could to save people.

He also wishes that they had never had to come here in the first place and that the Doctor had never had to make this decision. Donna is starting to realize too, what it means to travel with the Doctor, who the Doctor really is and the burden he carries.

Lance hates it when he talks about Gallifrey and the other Time Lords, and the burden he now carries alone. He hates the weight it brings to the Doctor's eyes and how he can almost see the weight of the universe of the Doctor's shoulders.

But Donna can't see all of this yet. She hasn't been around long enough. Or maybe, Lance thinks, feeling the heat of an actual volcano press down on him, he's been around too long, and has lost the hope of saving everyone.

Donna still has that hope.

Lance has never gotten the exact details on how the Doctor ended the Time War, but he knew that in the end both the Daleks and his own people had been destroyed. Watching the Doctor have his hand on the button that would kill them, and the aliens outside and the 20,000 people in the city, Lance wondered if this was how it had happened.

The Doctor, sitting there with a button, thinking about all the people he was about to kill.

Lance couldn't let him do it alone.

Neither, apparently, could Donna. Despite not knowing what Lance knew they both placed their hands on the Doctor's. They were in this together; the Doctor would not have to bear this burden alone.

And just like that, Pompeii was falling.

It was like snow; Lance thought as Donna screamed at the panicked people, the ash was like snow.

The Doctor had a tight grip on his hand as he led Lance through town after Donna, grabbing her hand too and pulling them along.

Donna was crying. It was a strange thing to notice when everything around them was falling apart but Donna was crying.

They got to the TARDIS and Lance was pushed inside the open doors, Donna following but she was yelling and screaming for the Doctor to go back.

Lance stumbled towards Donna, holding the controls as the Doctor refused to look at any of them.

The Doctor and Donna starred at each other as the Doctor told her that he couldn't save them and Donna pleaded for the Doctor to save someone, anyone.

Lance was still covered in ash, and Donna was still crying when Caecilius and his family were brought into the TARDIS.

Watching Pompeii burn was the most horrific thing Lance had ever watched, and the most humbling.

When they got back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor admitted that sometimes he needed someone to stop him, Lance couldn't help but feel useless. Donna had been able to help the Doctor, to understand the Doctor, and Lance had stood there and been dragged around like a child holding onto his father's hand.

Donna was so undoubtedly good for the Doctor.

Lance was glad that she was here.

Later, he was laying on his bed, fresh out of the shower and cleaned of any ash, when the knock came at his door.

He knows it must be Donna before he even opens the door and feels a sense of De Ja Vu when he sees her standing there just like she had been this morning. This time, however, she is holding two mugs of hot chocolate in her hands and is in lounging clothes.

"I thought after a day like today you might want someone to talk to." She tells him, and he moves aside so she can come in.

She takes in his room and sits on the edge of his bed, he joins her, and she hands him his hot chocolate, she had added whipped cream and chocolate shavings onto the top, something Lance didn't even know the TARDIS had.

Lance clutched the mug and stares at it for a moment, enjoying the warmth that was soaking into his hands. Donna is taking small sips out of her own mug.

"It's not always like this." He tells her, feeling like she should know.

Donna nods. "I believe you. But sometimes it is."

"Yeah, sometimes it is." Lance agrees with her.

"You said you've been traveling with the Doctor for a few months now right? What about school?"

"We have a system, I travel with the Doctor for a while, and then I go back home for a week, and he picks me up on the weekends. We've been doing that for a while now."

Donna looks at him carefully, and he tries not to look her in the eyes.

"How old are you Lance?" She asks quietly like she is almost afraid of the answer.

"I'm fifteen. I will be sixteen in a little while." He tells her, finally bringing the mug up to his lips, it tasted terrific.

"This is a lot for you to go through at fifteen," Donna tells him, and Lance sets his mug down on his side table, his hands are shaking too much for him to hold onto it.

"You understand though," Lance tells her because he knows it's true. She had gone looking for the Doctor, too. "Traveling with the Doctor is amazing, you can't just pass it up.

Donna's mug had been set on the side table at some point too, and suddenly Donna is hugging him tightly, and he can't help the tears that leak out of his eyes.

He seems to have been crying an awful lot lately.

He misses Rose, and Jack and Martha, he wants to see them all again.

"You are really good for the Doctor." He tells Donna, his face still pressed into her shoulder.

"I was to scared to do anything today, I've never had to take care of the Doctor, that was always Rose's job, and then Martha's job for a while. He hasn't been the same since Rose though. But you took care of him."

Donna squeezes him tighter at his words, pulling back and handing him his mug of hot chocolate again.

"It's not your job to take care of the Doctor." She tells Lance softly. "But for the record, I think you've been trying your best and doing a good job for Rose."

The Doctor must have mentioned Rose to Donna at some point because Donna is looking at him with such understanding eyes.

"You've been doing wonderfully, and being very brave, but for now let's just drink some cocoa and you can tell me all about where you are from, and what adventures you've been on."

Lance nods, and Donna wraps his comforter around his shoulders, and he clutched his pillow to his chest and drank his hot chocolate and tells Donna all about ice cream on the planet Golsdum and The Blitz where they had met Jack, and the time Daleks were in New York.

Eventually, his mug is empty, and he can feel his eyes growing heavier with every word he says and at some point while he is telling Donna about the Lazarus Experiment his eyes slide closed.

He wakes up the next morning and finds that someone had draped a blanket over him and taken the mugs off of his nightstand and he thinks that Donna might be just as good for him as she is for the Doctor.

Donna apparently can make pancakes, and according to her that's the only thing that she can make without setting anything on fire, but they do taste delicious.

But apparently, the surprises aren't over yet because the Doctor and Donna are herding him out of the TARDIS and onto Varadero Beach.

The Tardis is parked right on the edge of the sand, and the beach is filling up with tourists but it's not overly packed yet, the sun is shining, and waves are crashing onto the shore and further out looks perfect for surfing.

"We can spend the whole day here." The Doctor tells him, coming over to look out at the ocean. "And by five o'clock you can head back to your house without running into your other self, it will be like you've never been gone, but Donna wanted a beach day, and this is the best beach in the universe."

Lance rushes back into the TARDIS to get changed into a bathing suit, and when he comes back, Donna and the Doctor are setting up their towels on a patch of beach, and all Lance can think about is how good Donna really is for them.

He returns home that night and tries to remember what had been happening with his family the last time he had seen them, and it is surprisingly difficult to do, he had been away for a while.

The week passes and Lance takes the time to talk with his parents and his grandma, to catch up with his siblings and see a movie with them. He takes the time to remember that his life is more than traveling with the Doctor, and he feels content in knowing that the Doctor has Donna traveling with him right now and isn't alone.

It's Friday night when Lance is woken up by the tapping on his window.

Looking outside Lance is shocked to see Donna, leaning out of the TARDIS and tapping gently out of his window.

He gets up, opening it as wide as he could and pokes his head out.

"Come on!" Donna orders him. "Hop in, the Doctor's phone rang, we've got to go."

Which confuses Lance because the Doctor doesn't own a phone and the one outside the police box isn't hooked up yet even though the Doctor has been saying that he will hook it up ever since Lance had first known him. The only phone that the Doctor had was Martha's phone.

And oh.

Martha had promised that they would see her again.

And Martha has grown, it had clearly been longer for her than it had for him and the Doctor. But she pulls him into a hug and asks how he's been, and he grins and tells her that he had been fine and that Donna had been taking care of them. Donna and Martha hit it off immediately, and Lance is happy because apparently Martha is engaged and a Doctor now and Martha's family is doing okay.

He gets a lot of looks in the military base, but he is hitting another growth spurt he thinks so maybe he'll start looking his age soon.

Donna, as usual, doesn't let anyone bully her around and gets her salute and Martha and Lance exchange pleased grins as Colonel Mace does just that.

Donna leaves to visit her family while they were here, make sure they are okay, and Lance stays with the Doctor as they go over things on the computer.

Later they are surrounded by a bunch of kid geniuses, and Lance feels really out of place, but Ross is nice and also there, so it makes him feel a little better.

Luke seems to completely ignore him and Ross, focusing only on the Doctor. The Doctor seems to take offense to this, going as far as to say, "Don't call Ross a grunt, Ross is nice! And Lance is going to be capable of more than you can ever imagine, you should be nicer."

It was nice to hear that the Doctor thought Lance was destined for greatness, even if he was being biased in saying it.

But in the end, Luke ended up just being lonely, and Lance only felt grateful to him as he traded places with the Doctor.

Throughout his time on the TARDIS Lance knew that the ship was sentient, the Doctor liked to talk to her sometimes, and Lance sometimes did too when he couldn't sleep. But Lance had never seen the TARDIS slam her doors shut as she did on Martha.

And he had never seen the TARDIS take off on her own before either, and it wasn't a smooth take-off, Lance dropped to the floor trying to hold onto a pillar as the rumbling of the TARDIS continued for a few more minutes, only accompanied by Martha demanding to be taken home.

And then there was silence as they landed.

For a moment no one knew what to do, they had moved, but they had no idea where they had gone. But they were adventurers first, and they quickly followed the Doctor outside.

The Doctor's supposed daughter was smiling at them, but Lance didn't know what to think mostly because he didn't know what had just happened. How could this person, who seemed to be only a year or two older than him, be the Doctor's daughter?

He doesn't get much of a chance to process the whole thing before a bomb goes off and he's stuck on the other side of the wall from the Doctor, Donna, and the new girl.

He had Martha though, which is a relief.

He and Martha are quickly brought to the Hath base, and from there they trudge across the planet surface to meet up with the Doctor and Donna.

The planet is cold and windy, and Martha had said something about radiation that Lance chose to ignore for the time being, but then Martha slipped, and Lance's arms were too short to reach, and the Hath that Martha had befriended sacrificed himself.

Lance felt terrible for the relief that flooded his veins as he held onto Martha and pulled her to her feet so they could continue going.

They made it to the tower and got inside, and Lance instantly felt warmer, especially because they made it just in time to meet up with the Doctor and Donna, and apparently the new girl who's name was Jenny and was sticking around for a while.

But things still weren't okay, because there was a gunshot and Jenny was dying in the Doctor's arms, and it just wasn't fair.

Nothing was ever fair when it came to the Doctor, and it broke Lance's heart.

They took Martha back home, and Lance hugged her, telling her to stay safe. Donna and Martha talked for a moment, and then Martha was gone again, but it was easier this time. He knew Martha would be okay.

And who knew, maybe she would call them again one day.

They wandered back to the TARDIS and Donna collapsed into Lance's hammock, so Lance found a seat between one of the pillars and made himself comfortable instead.

The Doctor came in and started to tell them a story about a robot dog when a beeping came from the engine below, and the Doctor rushed down to take care of whatever part of the TARDIS was breaking.

"Sometimes I think he's going to blow us up accidentally," Donna commented from her relaxed position in the hammock.

Lance laughed. "I think the TARDIS sets those warnings off early, half the time I don't think they are as urgent as she makes them out to be, still send the Doctor running every time."

Donna hummed nodding. "He'd probably forget otherwise."

Lance agreed before hesitantly asking. "Jenny, the Doctor was really starting to think of her as his daughter?"

Donna opened her eyes. "Yeah." She sounded so sad. "He was warming up to the idea of her traveling with us, and I was too. You would have loved her Lance. She would have been like your sister."

Lance swung his feet out in consideration. "The Doctor would have to think of me like a son for her to really be my sister, and he doesn't think that."

Donna scoffed. "Doesn't think like that?" She sounded incredulous like Lance had just told her that the sky was purple. But then realized that he was serious.

"Lance, the Doctor cares so much about you. He hasn't put a title on it, and you obviously have your family at home, but he takes you everywhere, makes sure you stay safe, and you've told me yourself, we're all the Doctor has. He might not call you his son, he might not be ready to face it like that yet, but he loves you like one."

Lance was silent, staring at the console of the TARDIS and listened as the Doctor made noise from below deck, trying to fix whatever the TARDIS wanted him too.

"He told me some things when we were down in those tunnels, he talked to Jenny a lot about you, and I can't say much, but there is a reason you're traveling with him, Lance. He is so proud of you."

The Doctor chose that moment to reappear from below deck.

"Alright got that all fixed up! TARDIS wasn't very happy with the use of Duct tape, but she'll get over it."

Lance couldn't help but chuckle with Donna as they hopped off the hammock and pillar and got ready to go to their next destination.

They traveled for a little bit more, dropping Lance off at home every so often so he could see his family and go to school.

He got a letter in the mail from the Galaxy Garrison, and he was accepted! His family and him celebrated all day, and then that weekend he brought his letter into the TARDIS to show Donna and the Doctor, and the Doctor took them to a space amusement park in celebration.

Lance got the feeling both Donna and the Doctor had known he was going to get in, but they still were thrilled to hear the news.

He'd actually done it. He'd gotten in.

He'd let Hunk know immediately, and they were all set to go to be roommates.

He had told Donna, and the Doctor all of this as they had walked into the TARDIS and the Doctor and grinned and called him brilliant and Donna had laughed, and in celebration, the Doctor said he was going to take him to the biggest library in the universe.

Libraries were cool but the biggest library in the universe? That would make anything amazing.

Only when they got there, the entire place was abandoned. No one was there.

Lance had never given much thought to noise. Maybe because wherever he went, he always seemed to be surrounded by it. Whether it be home or on the TARDIS.

But here, when they stopped talking, the entire planet was silent.

And for once, Lance could understand how silence could be loud.

Professor Rover Song unnerves him.

She knows the Doctor, and she seems to know him, but she does not know Donna.

And Lance doesn't have to be a genius to figure out what that means, and Lance can't except it, not from this lady who is an archaeologist and could be lying.

He isn't ready to accept that one day he could lose Donna.

After the events in the library, Lance is left with a fear of the dark and the fear of losing Donna.

Lance hates the archaeologist that had called herself River Song.

The Doctor, Donna, and him travel to a few more spots before they are dropping him off at home again, promising to be back soon.

They are not back soon.

Lance hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

The Doctor shows up at his door that Friday without Donna and Lance can't help but slam the door in the Doctor's face after he has given his explanation.

The Doctor leaves after that.

Lance isn't sure he wants him to come back.


	8. Chance, Fate, or Destiny?

The Doctor had come, the Doctor always came when Lance called.

And the Doctor was just as amazing as he always was, with his funny clothes and ridiculous hair.

They had gotten the Castle of Lion's back in no time at all, and Lance had gotten to see the Doctor again.

Pidge had been ecstatic to look around the TARDIS, Lance had warned her about wandering too far in and getting lost, but she had seemed more interested in the control room than anything, so Lance wasn't too worried.

The Doctor had been answering questions for hours, seemingly enjoying every second of it.

Lance was getting lots of questions too, but they weren't the science questions, so it was fine.

Eventually, one by one, the other Paladins had gone to bed, unable to stay awake any longer despite the excitement.

Pidge had been picked up and dragged away from the TARDIS by Hunk to go to bed, and Lance swore that the TARDIS had let out a small noise of sadness as she was picked up.

The TARDIS must've taken a liking to Pidge.

Eventually, Lance had been the only one awake, and he found himself sitting in what the paladins called the castles living room.

Lance was thinking.

When he had been traveling with the Doctor he had known that the Doctor knew almost anything there was to know about the universe.

Well, maybe not everything but he knew the most out of anybody.

Lance had always wondered why the Doctor had invited him to travel with him; maybe this was the reason. He was important because of Voltron, and the Doctor was always curious about important things.

He gravitated towards them, and the Doctor was always drawn towards essential points of time. Of course, he had been pulled towards Lance, although it was strange that of all the paladins the Doctor had chosen Lance.

"You've grown."

Lance didn't jump, the Doctor didn't sleep often, and Lance knew that the Doctor would find him eventually.

"Still traveling Doctor?" Lance asked even though he knew the answer.

"Not sure if I could ever stop."

"You know I've always wondered, Doctor." Lance was still in his Paladin suit, and it made him feel so old. But next to the Doctor he still felt so small.

"Why did you let me travel with you?"

The Doctor stopped fiddling with his machine, looking up at him.

"What do you mean why?"

"You could have met any of the Paladins, and you could have traveled with any of them. And even if it was just by chance that you met me, why invite some fifteen years old along anyway?"

"Oh, Lance."

Lance wasn't looking at the Doctor anymore; he couldn't. He knew that the Doctor would be looking at him with pity.

"It was chance, that we landed on that beach." The Doctor finally told him.

"Just a whim, Rose and I were crashing, the TARDIS needed to find land and latched onto the closest spot, but the TARDIS is clever, and took us to the place that had the most non-hostile alien activity, which was you. Only we arrived a few years too early."

"So you could have landed anywhere, and by chance, you landed near me." Lance couldn't believe that the whole thing was just a game of chance.

"Well," The Doctor said tossing his machine in the air only to catch it. "Chance, fate, destiny. They all mean the same thing."

"But why bother with me?" Lance still couldn't understand.

"What do you mean why bother? Your amazing Lance! Look at you, all you've done and all you are going to do."

"So because I am a paladin you invited me along." Lance was beginning to understand.

"No."

Lance looked back at the Doctor, his eyes were steely and bore into Lance.

"I invited you to travel along before I learned your name, don't you remember Lance? I invited you along because you're you. Everyone I travel with is brilliant and brave and the most amazing people I've ever met. You're included in that."

Lance had forgotten. The Doctor had brought him into the TARDIS, and they had left, and Lance had told him his name.

"You aren't upset that I am a soldier?"

It had always bothered Lance. The Doctor hated wars and violence, why would he care for Lance? Who was involved in what could possibly be the second biggest war of the universe.

"Oh Lance, you are so much more than a soldier. Look at you! All you've done, all the people you have saved and will save." The Doctor was beaming at him, and Lance couldn't remember him ever looking at Lance so proudly.

"Careful Doctor," Lance smiled remembering a woman with curly hair and a TARDIS blue book. "Spoilers."

The Doctor smiled. "Spoilers." He agreed.

They sat in silence for a moment before Lance couldn't help but ask. "How long have you been traveling alone?"

Lance could feel the weight of the question, both Lance and the Doctor knew it was terrible for him to travel alone, Donna had taught them that much, and it had only become more accurate the longer the Doctor traveled.

Lance had tried to be there for the Doctor always, but eventually, like everyone else, Lance had had to leave.

"A while." The Doctor knew that he shouldn't be alone, but sometimes Lance knew, things were more complicated than that.

"You know you should never be alone Doctor." It had to be said out loud, and maybe the Doctor would become motivated again, find someone to travel with.

"You could come with me again."

Lance knew it was coming, and it broke his heart because both he and the Doctor knew his answer. But the Doctor couldn't help but ask, he never could. And Lance wanted to, he did. But things were different now.

"You know I can't do that anymore Doctor; I have a job here to do now."

And it was true. And for the first time in his life, Lance understood Martha's choice to leave.

"I suppose you're right."

It was strange, talking to the Doctor like this like they were equals. Maybe Lance was growing up.

"You can always stay here, or come and visit." Lance offered. He knew he should ask Allura about it first, but the Doctor was family, and he didn't think Allura would have a problem with it.

They stayed like that for a while more, Lance trying to give as much comfort to the Doctor as he could, before he couldn't keep his eyes open much more and bid the Doctor goodnight.


	9. Amy and Rory Part 1

Time passes slower when it goes in a straight line.

Lance hadn't realized how long it had been since he'd had to live life in the right order, how long had he been traveling with the Doctor for anyway?

Months?

Years?

He was still short for his age, but his fifteenth birthday had been only a few short weeks before he had met the doctor, and his sixteenth was fast approaching, but still a few months away, and with it the last few months before he would travel to the Galaxy Garrison.

Lance was pretty sure that time in the TARDIS was slowed, or warped in some way because no matter how long he seemed to travel with the Doctor for, the time never seemed to affect Lance the way it should have.

Lance tried to avoid that train of thought; it wouldn't be a problem anymore, it had been four weeks since the Doctor had left after telling him that Donna was alive and okay, but had forgotten everything about him. Everything about Lance.

And Lance had just been so angry, and he hadn't known what to do. This kept happening, and Lance was beginning to realize that that was just what happened around the Doctor, people died.

The Doctor had told Lance this once, that people always left, but it had been while Rose was still with them, and Lance hadn't understood what the Doctor meant.

They hadn't lost anyone yet.

And maybe that was the problem, Lance wondered. Maybe it was him, he had been around too long, most of the people in the Doctor's life had left by this point, Lance was quite possibly one of the few people who really knew the Doctor, that knew most of his story, and even then Lance knew he was missing large chunks of knowledge, and still, he quite possibly had been around the longest.

Lance wondered how the Doctor lived with all the loss, which had to be more than even Lance knew about, and he knew about a lot.

A sudden cold breeze swept through the beach that Lance was sitting on. Varadero beach was empty, tourist season had long since ended, and now the beach was vacant.

Lance had taken advantage of this most days after school, he would finish his homework and spend some time with his family so that they wouldn't think anything was wrong, and then he would come out here to think.

It was calming, as the beach had always been, but it reminded him of Donna and the beach day they had all taken. And it made Lance miss her even more. It made Lance miss the Doctor even more.

Because Lance was angry at the Doctor, but over time it had become hollow anger because Lance knew that the Doctor had done everything that he could to save Donna, and it had worked, she was still alive, only missing her memories.

The Doctor had done his best, and Lance knew that it had probably hurt him so much worse than it had hurt Lance, but the Doctor had left and hadn't come back, and there was a chance he never would.

It made Lance's heart ache.

He still wore the necklace, and after the first two weeks, once the anger had settled and the loss had started to affect him, he had called the TARDIS phone, but no one had answered, the only thing that greeted him was the wheezing sound of the TARDIS in place of the answering machine.

It only made Lance's chest ache worse.

The Doctor clearly did not want to talk to Lance.

And Lance didn't blame him.

Lance stayed at the beach until the sun was noticeably lower in the sky, his mama would be expecting him back for dinner soon.

Lance sat and ate with his family, everyone talking about their day, voices overlapping and dishes being passed and Lance felt content to know that at least he still had them, even if the Doctor never came back, he still had his family.

The next day was Saturday, and Lance had been planning on sleeping in, but his sister had other plans.

"Come on Lance we are going shopping!"

Lance loved shopping, but it was ridiculously early in the morning to be thinking about even waking up, much less going all the way into town to shop.

But his sister had won out, and soon they were both looking through racks of clothes and new skin care products that Lance was beginning to enjoy doing with her.

It was only when he got distracted by video games did he lose his sister, but Lance wasn't worried, he would catch up with her and if he didn't they both had their cellphones, so Lance let himself look at the newest video games for a while, leaving after he decided he couldn't buy anything with the money he had left.

The mall was always busy on Saturday's the sound of hundreds of people blending together creating a dull buzz so that Lance couldn't make any sense of what anyone was saying as he walked by the strangers, or almost couldn't make out everyone's conversation.

It was the accent that stood out.

Among all the Spanish that was flooding the mall, the English accent stood out like a sore thumb, and it drew Lance's attention immediately.

The owner of the voice was a beautiful red headed lady who was trying, and failing, to talk to someone behind a counter of a food stand.

"I just need to know how to get to Varadero." The lady was saying in desperation, trying to speak a little in Spanish and ultimately making the situation more awkward for everyone.

Lance couldn't help it, he had a soft spot for English accents and the poor lady was a pretty tourist, so he walked over to help.

"Sorry about this," he told the frustrated girl behind the counter, "I know English I can help."

The girl nodded and went back to work, seemingly happy to be rid of the red-haired girl.

"Hi, my names Lance. Can I help?"

The redhead visibly brightened. "Thank god, yes, I need to know where Varadero beach is. I'm supposed to meet my friend there."

"I know where that is! I can walk you there it isn't far."

"Really? Thanks, my friend was looking for someone I think but he ran off without me, and I got lost."

"Its no problem, my name is Lance." He told her, bringing out his phone so he could let Veronica know that he was heading home. And maybe he should've been more careful about leaving with a stranger, but it was honestly one of the least dangerous things he had ever done so he wasn't too worried.

"Amy." She offered, and from there they were able to fall into conversation easily.

Amy it turned out was traveling with her friend and had been for a while. It made Lance miss traveling, but Amy was nice and told him about the town she was from too, and her husband Rory who had recently joined them in traveling.

Lance found it funny that she had been off traveling with another man without her husband, but quickly decided that it wasn't any of his business.

Soon his house came into view, but he walked right past it without letting her know it was his, after all, he wasn't stupid and just because this lady was nice didn't mean he would be letting her know where he lived.

Only a few seconds later they were stepping onto the sand, and just like yesterday, it was almost completely empty.

Almost empty, because a man was sitting in the sand, not far from where Lance had sat yesterday. Amy immediately walked over to the man and, so Lance assumed that this was her husband. But there was no sign of her friend or anyone else on the beach.

Lance was just about to leave when Amy called him over.

"Lance this is Rory. Rory this is Lance. He helped me get back when we all got separated."

Rory stuck his hand out "Nice to meet you, Lance."

Lance shook his hand, Rory seemed friendly to talk to, and for a while, he sat and talked to them.

It was only when his phone rang that he realized he should probably get home.

Quickly saying his goodbyes to the couple, and wondering where their friend had gone off to for so long without them, he headed for home.

That night Lance dreamed of space, and his mind was filled with the shade of blue and the sound of the TARDIS.

When Lance woke up, it was earlier in the morning than he had even woken before, the sun was barely peaking up over the horizon. But the dream stuck with Lance, and it had shaken him even though he couldn't remember more than the sound of the TARDIS and the vacuum of space.

Pulling on clothes and shoes, Lance snuck out of the house, still shaking, and found himself walking to the beach.

Lance had been right; he had arrived at the beach just in time to watch the sunrise.

The sight calmed Lance down, and he let himself lean back and close his eyes, he must've drifted off to sleep because the next thing he knew he was being shaken awake.

"Lance?"

The voice was familiar and British, and it was waking Lance up.

"Donna?" He asked confused at when he had fallen asleep.

The person had stopped shaking him, and he blinked his eyes open fully, realizing he had fallen asleep on the beach when the voice spoke again.

"No, sorry, its Amy."

Amy. The redhead he'd helped yesterday.

He sat up, feeling disoriented from the sun and the nap.

"Oh sorry, fell asleep. Funny seeing you here again?"

"Well we can't go anywhere without our friend, and he doesn't want to leave without finding who he's looking for, so for now we are staying here."

She didn't sound too disappointed, but maybe a little confused?

Lance stood up, Amy following his lead as she stood from where she had been crouching next to him.

"Where is Rory?" He asked her, looking around and not finding her fiance anywhere around the beach.

"He's making breakfast, and I decided to take a walk on the beach since I'm rubbish in the kitchen."

Lance laughed, leaning down to shake the sand from himself as he did so. But the movement made the sun gleam off of something in the distance.

Lace turned to look at it closer, and his heart nearly stopped.

The sun was gleaming off of a sign that was nailed to the side of a blue police box, hidden in the brush of the beach. One would have to know to look for it to find it.

Amy was still talking with him, but he wasn't listening anymore and started walking toward the box.

Amy was definitely talking to him now, sounding frightened as he turned away from her and started making his way to the box.

"Lance what are you doing it's just some old police box, probably been there for years, definitely not interesting, just an old box of wood."

Lance wasn't listening.

He had reached the box, despite Amy's protesting that he should leave it alone, and he was just about to place his hand on the door when a voice came from behind them.

"Lance."

Lance let his hand fall from the door, and Amy's protesting stopped.

Lance turned around with the air of someone far too old for someone fifteen and met the Doctor's eyes for the first time in weeks.

"Doctor."

Amy and Rory were confused, Lance could tell, but he couldn't bring himself to try and explain anything to them. He didn't want to try to explain everything to them.

The Doctor had changed his face again, but as always he had the same eyes.

They sat in the TARDIS kitchen, the four of them. Rory had given everyone, even him, a plate but no one had touched any of their food. Lance just stared at the Doctor, and the Doctor just stared at him.

Finally, after what felt like forever Amy spoke. "So is anyone going to explain what is going on? Or are we just going to keep sitting here in silence?"

For a few seconds no one answered her but then Lance had had enough. "I tried calling."

The Doctor nodded. "I know but the TARDIS was shifting, the call didn't come through until a few days ago. That's why we're here."

"I thought we were here for you to find your friend?" Amy asked the Doctor, and Lance wondered how it wasn't obvious at this point.

"That would be me; I'm the friend then."

Amy and Rory shared a look.

"You weren't what we were expecting."

"Did you think I would be older or more alien?" He asked them with an amused smile, finally looking away from the Doctor.

"Both I guess," Rory told him honestly.

"Fully human." He told them both. And now that the tension has eased from the room somewhat, and the Doctor is grinning at him Lance can smell the food from the plate, and it smells delicious. He hadn't eaten yet and quickly picks up his fork, digging in.

It's as delicious as it smells and he says thank you to Rory through a mouth full of food, and Amy rolls her eyes at him, and Rory shakes his head, and the Doctor is smiling. Lance knows that he should be careful. This is always the pattern. The Doctor finds someone new to travel with, and then comes and gets Lance, and then Lance gets attached to them, and then they leave, or they die, or they forget,

But Lance can't help it. Traveling with the Doctor is, and he cares about the Doctor so much, so he eats the breakfast that Rory made for them and answers some of their questions, and he can already feel them accepting him into their lives.

It scares him, but he lets it happen.

Later, after they have washed the dishes, Amy and Rory are walking with him through the TARDIS, and the Doctor is in the control room. Lance was heading towards his room in the TARDIS, and Amy and Rory were following.

"You must be pretty good friends with the Doctor to know your way around the TARDIS," Amy observes, and Lance chuckles.

"I used to travel with him." He tells them both as he stops outside his room.

They look at him in surprise, because he knows it's one thing to be friends with the Doctor, but it's another thing entirely for someone to travel with him.

"Aren't you kinda young to have been traveling with the Doctor?" Rory asks him, but Lance shrugs. Who knows anymore.

Lance goes to enter his room when Amy stops him. "That door is locked."

Lance let's go of the doorknob in surprise. "What? It's my room though?"

Amy's face scrunches in confusion. "But that door is always locked, the Doctor said the TARDIS does that sometimes. The other three doors are all locked too."

Lance looks to see which door she is talking about and his heart clenches.

Something must show on his face because Amy is trying to backtrack. "I mean maybe it will be unlocked? The Doctor never said why they were locked."

Lance grabs the doorknob again, and the door opens easily, his room is just how he left it.

He assumes the other three rooms are the same.

"The TARDIS was keeping the room safe for me. I will meet you in the control room."

The door closes behind Lance, and he tries to hold himself together.

If the Ponds had thought that Lance had been rude, they don't mention it when he walks into the control room. The Doctor is as always running around the console, and the Ponds are watching him amused and smiling. They greet him when he walks into the room and Lance goes to sit on a chair near the Ponds when he notices the hammock hanging between two posts that he was sure wasn't there before.

Grinning he sits in the hammock, and it feels like he never left.

"That wasn't there before," Amy comments spinning in her chair looking over at him.

The Doctor's head pops up before popping back out of sight. "The TARDIS loves Lance; she likes giving him things."

Rory nods like that makes sense to him and they don't bring it up again. But Lance notices for all the time the Ponds must have been traveling with the Doctor, the Doctor hadn't told them a lot of things. He wonders if that was how this new Doctor was trying to move on, and worries about what that means.

Things have changed on the TARDIS so much since Lance had first traveled with Rose, and then Martha and Donna, he wonders if he even fits in anymore.

Then he realizes his family will be awake by now and probably have already realized that he is gone.

But then the Doctor's voice is directed at him, and Lance calms. "I shifted us back in time so that we could figure some things out like always we can get you home before they even know you're gone."

Lance nods accepting what the Doctor says and relaxes again, but this time it's Amy that speaks.

"And what is going on? Are we bringing Lance with us?"

"That's his choice." The Doctor tells her and Lance can feel their gazes on him.

"If it's no trouble," Lance is looking at Amy and Rory as he says this because he knows sometimes people can get a little possessive over the Doctor. "I would like to come."

And Lance knows there was no way he was ever not going to come the second he saw the TARDIS he had wanted to stay. The TARDIS was a second home at this point.

Amy and Rory welcome him aboard with no issue, although he thinks they are going to keep on trying to explain things to him like they were the ones here first. It's probably because he looks so young, but they can't help but tell him to hold on when the TARDIS takes off. Lance tries to hide the twinge of anger as they do so.

But slowly they start to understand that they don't need to hold his hand.

They go to a few fun places first, like an amusement park with anti-gravity rides and a vacation spot for Amy that is sunny and has alcoholic drinks that they won't let Lance touch.

It's relaxed, it's fun, it feels like family.

Lance learns more about Amy and Rory and learns about their adventures with the Doctor. He learns that the Doctor had actually reset the universe and that Rory had actually never been born for a while but then he was again.

Their adventures were amazing, but it only reminded Lance of how long the Doctor had been without him, and in the meantime, he had found Amy and Rory. Lance couldn't help but wonder why the Doctor had come back for him at all.

Instead of voicing his worries he tells them some of his adventures, nothing too personal just a few of the adventures he had helped the Doctor with and slowly the Ponds begin to realize that the Doctor had this whole other life before he met them. It makes Lance happy and sad that the Doctor hadn't told them so much about him.

One day while Lance is in the TARDIS living room Amy and Rory wander in. Lance had long ago developed a habit of hanging out in here in his pajamas and hot chocolate. They sit in the couch across from his chair and enjoy each others company.

Eventually, Lance drifts off to sleep.

He wakes up in his room, tucked in like his parents used to do for him when he was little.

The Doctor drops him off at home a few days later, and it feels like nothing has changed.

He spends the week doing school work, messaging Hunk, and helping babysit his niece and nephew. The week passes quickly, and before Lance knows it, he is sitting outside on his porch waiting for the Doctor to show up.

Surprisingly, it's not the Doctor that shows up; it's Amy. And she walks into his backyard from the street.

"The Doctor landed at the beach, told me where to find you."

Lance hops up and follows her out. They walk slow, and Lance thinks that Amy might have something to talk to him about so he doesn't rush. They've only made it two houses down from his when Amy stops.

Lance stops too and waits for her to say what's on her mind.

"The Doctor doesn't like talking about his past much."

"No, he doesn't."

"I knew there were other people he traveled with, but..." Amy looks like she doesn't know how to continue but does anyway. "Those other locked doors, those were their rooms weren't they?"

Lance nods. "He keeps them as they left them."

"But don't they take their stuff when they leave?" Lance doesn't know why Amy is bringing this up with him when she could have just as easily asked the Doctor.

"They didn't get the chance to take their stuff." Lance finally admits when he realizes she wants an honest answer, something she won't get with the Doctor who doesn't like digging up the past.

Lance keeps going. "It's dangerous traveling with the Doctor, you know that and so did they. Most of them are still alive; they're just out of reach."

"You knew them." It's not a question. Lance nods. "Most of them. There were more before me that he doesn't like talking to me about. But I knew most of them."

"You lost them too."

Lance tenses. But doesn't refute it.

The rest of the walk back is silent.

The TARDIS lands and Lance is quick to recognize the swaying feeling under his feet. They're on a boat. A wooden boat by the looks of it.

"Alright, here we go," The Doctor was using the sonic screwdriver to analyze whatever was in one of the boxes around them. "Still doesn't do wood but these swords were made around the 17th century!"

"Doctor there is a hatch." Rory was already reaching up to try and open it, the Doctor quick to follow. Lance and Amy are standing behind them as they pounded on the hatch trying to open it.

They weren't successful, but it didn't matter, only a few seconds later the hatch opened from the other side, and they came face to face with the crew of the ship.

They were on a pirate ship, which in Lance's opinion was amazing.

When he was younger, he always used to pretend that he was a pirate on the seas. His older brother had even gotten him a fake telescope for his seventh birthday.

None of his adventures then had ended with him walking the plank though, which was what they were going to make him do, right after the Doctor and Rory. Amy had been taken below deck.

Lance was waiting for whatever the Doctor had planned, or was planning when Amy burst back onto the deck with a sword and a hat.

Amy was awesome, he was sure she had never held a sword before in her life but she wasn't letting that stop her, she was planning on taking them all on.

He was quick to get out of her way as she swung in on the rope, he managed to get behind one of the pirates trying to grab Amy and kicked him in the back of the knee. The man stumbled, and Lance leaped out of the way as he took a blind swing at him.

It gave Amy an opening to go for the pirate with the bar in his hand, but when she managed to cut his hand the whole ship froze.

"You've killed me." The man told Amy resignation in his voice as the fight left him.

No one on the ship disagreed.

Maybe there was more to this pirating adventure than they first thought.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Rory's face was dumbstruck as he looked at the siren, and Lance had to agree that the siren was beautiful in a weird way, but Amy's face looked murderous.

If the situation weren't so, severe Lance would be snickering because the look that Amy was giving Rory was never good. If Rory were in his right mind, Amy would have already killed him by now.

But then Amy pulled Rory back and away from the siren, and the siren didn't look very beautiful anymore when she snarled and turned red, face becoming murderous.

Then, they were running.

Lance had actually missed the running.

But then the siren keeps finding them, which makes sense considering she has an advantage of them being surrounded by water. Then, to make matters worse it starts to rain, Lance had always loved the rain, but now really wasn't the perfect time for it.

The rain made everything slippery, and the wind was picking up, so it was a wonder that Rory lasted so long before being flung violently into the ocean. But the Doctor thought that maybe everyone was still alive so with no other choice and Rory possibly dying they let the siren take them.

The distress signal that they had landed here initially to answer was echoing throughout the new ship, a loud beeping sound that echoed off the metal.

They wandered through the empty hallways, occasionally seeing windows that looked out onto the pirate ship until they stumbled upon a few dozen people laying on tables.

The captain rushed to each of them, relieved to see his crew alive, and then finding his son, settled there to make sure he was okay while Amy rushed over to where she had seen Rory, Lance quick to follow while the Doctor got distracted by the TARDIS.

The siren came in just as they were waking Rory up, and Lance had to drag Amy away and behind one of the monitors where he hoped she couldn't see them.

The siren came in and put Rory back to sleep, and the Doctor realized that the siren wasn't intending to hurt them, but instead a Doctor.

They woke Rory up again after Amy had been given permission and they tried to figure out what to do after realizing that Rory was still technically drowning.

"I'm a nurse," Rory told them urgently, obviously not liking the idea of staying on the ship. "I can teach you how to save me."

Lance stepped forward, wringing his hands together as he felt Rory and Amy turn to look at him. "I am a lifeguard over the summer, they taught us how to do CPR but I've never had to do it on an actual person, I can try if you want me to, I've at least taken a class."

Amy looked at Rory in question, and Rory nodded. "You remember what they taught you?"

Lance nodded, and they went over the steps together just to be sure.

Then Lance took a step back as Amy took a few moments alone with Rory just in case anything went wrong.

The Doctor stood next to him. They didn't speak.

Then Amy called him over, and they ripped the machine keeping Rory alive off of him and moved them to the TARDIS floor.

And then Lance was pressing his hands down on Rory's chest and taking deep breathes to get air into his lungs, Lance could feel his heart hammering as he did so. He couldn't let Amy and Rory down. Amy and Rory were nice and in love and Lance couldn't be the reason that Rory died, he couldn't be.

Lance didn't stop the cycle of pushing his hands down on Rory's chest and breathing for him even when he heard Amy crying and could see the Doctors shaky hands, not sure when to pull Lance off of Rory.

And then, Rory started coughing.

Lance was quick to roll him over onto his side to help the water leave his lungs, but after that quickly moved aside so that a tearful Amy could hug Rory.

The Doctor came over and put a hand on his shoulder; Lance turned and hugged the Doctor.

The Doctor was slow to put his arms around him, and Lance knew it was because while he had said yes to traveling with him again, they had yet to talk about his reason for leaving, for slamming the door in the Doctors face.

The Doctor always was good at blaming himself, but this time Lance was the one who was in the wrong, yes he had been upset but so was the Doctor, and Lance had abandoned him even after promising everyone that he wouldn't.

Lance hugged the Doctor tighter.

After that, they said goodbye to the pirates, who apparently were going to be space pirates now, and left in the TARDIS. Amy and Rory were heading to their room, leaving Lance and the Doctor alone for the first time in a long time.

The Doctor was occupied by looking at the TV screen the TARDIS had so Lance left him alone, sitting in the Hammock that the TARDIS still kept for him.

"Are we okay," The Doctor still wasn't looking at him as he spoke. "I know we've been pretending we're okay, but I failed you again Lance."

Lance stared at the Doctor, not knowing what to say.

"When I grabbed your hand all those months ago and took you to the stars I thought I was preparing you," What the Doctor thought he was preparing him for Lance didn't know, but that was a question for another time. "But instead I put you constantly in danger and keep failing you and everyone else. And then I couldn't help but go back because I missed you, despite knowing that I will put you in danger again."

Lance waited to make sure the Doctor was finished, he had known that the Doctor was blaming himself for losing everyone, but putting that much blame onto himself wasn't right.

"Doctor, I came back willingly. I didn't have to come back, but I did because I missed you, I'm the one who called you, don't you remember?"

The Doctor looked away. "I tempt you with all of time and space. How could you say no?"

Lance scoffed. "Sure it is amazing Doctor, but I know the risks, I could still walk away, but you still really don't get it do you? After all this time?"

Lance got up from his hammock and met the Doctors eye. "You are so worried about scaring us away and putting us in danger like we don't know its danger and like we don't have a choice. But Doctor," Lance took a breath. "Rose, Martha, and Donna, they made their choices because they care about you. Your part of our family."

"I've put you all in danger." The Doctor insisted. "Even Amy and Rory now, and you again are better off leaving."

"Yes," Lance agreed. "You have put us in danger, but Doctor, do you really think we care about you so little that that will make a difference?"

The Doctor didn't protest again as Lance pulled him into another hug.

The next morning everyone was careful to relax, Rory especially as he was recovering from almost drowning. The Doctor, who after his last regeneration cycle was a hopeless cook, was fiddling with some sort of metal arm that looked like it came from a Cyberman, where he had gotten that Lance didn't know, but he left him to it.

Lance meanwhile was going to try and make soup for Rory after the man had quietly asked him for some, not wanting Amy or the Doctor to hear his request in fear that they would try and help.

So there he was trying re-familiarize himself with the kitchen after it had been reorganized after the Doctor's regeneration cycle while Amy, Rory, and the Doctor sat in the living room.

He had just started chopping up vegetables for the soup, glad that he had paid attention when his abuela was trying to teach him how to cook and when Hunk was talking about food when Amy came through the door.

"Hi." He greeted her, hoping she wasn't going to ask to help if Rory had gone out of his way to ask him then there must be a reason for it.

"Hi." She greeted back, sliding into a seat at the counter.

Figuring that she was just there to keep him company Lance went back to cutting vegetables.

"The Doctor dies."

Lance's hand slipped, and the knife narrowly avoided cutting his finger off, not that he was paying close attention and was instead gaping up at Amy.

"I'm sorry what?"

"A while ago, we got an envelope telling us to go to an exact time and place, we went because the envelope was TARDIS blue, we thought it was the Doctor."

"Was it?"

Amy nodded. "It was, he gathered all of us, Rory, me and River and," She paused like she wasn't sure what she was allowed to say but quickly decided it didn't matter and continued. "And you."

"Me? I was there?"

Amy nodded again. "You were there, but you were older, you knew who we were, but at the time we hadn't met you yet. But you knew River and River knew you."

"I was older? By how much?" Lance found himself asking, despite knowing that she probably shouldn't tell him.

Amy shrugged. "We didn't ask because we didn't know you, didn't expect to meet you again as a kid, but you were at least twenty-five."

Lance's jaw dropped, that was at least ten years in the future.

"But that isn't important." Amy's voice snapped him out of his train of thought.

"The point is that the Doctor gathered us all there and brought us down to the beach to watch him die."

Amy's eyes met his.

"It was an older version of the Doctor, he gathered his past self there as well, and we went to find the thing that killed him. But we couldn't. The Doctor still died there, but he doesn't know. Rory thought we should tell you, considering you were there in the future as well."

Lance nodded. "Thank you."

"The Doctor can't know," Amy said gravely, in the same tone she had used the time someone had a gun pointed at Rory.

"I know."

"But we aren't going to let it happen," Lance told her because he knew she had the same thought.

"I know."

"Oh, it's the warning lights." The Doctor told them a few days later as they were hanging out around the console and the Doctor was telling Rory a story.

Lance rolled his eyes at the Doctors antics and continued to try and solve the puzzle the Doctor had given him to compete when he had noticed he was bored.

Then the knocking came.

"Aren't we drifting in space right now?" Lance wondered aloud to the room.

The Doctor nodded, slowly approaching the door.

There was more knocking.

The little box, or apparently what was a Time Lord Emergency System, was something that Lance thought was impossible. Because, how could there be an emergency message from a Time Lord, if there were none left?

The Doctor was getting excited, saying that there was a Time Lord out there somewhere, but Lance was unsure.

They had been led into traps like this before, but the Doctor was putting his all into getting them to where the cube was sending them.

Lance could only follow along as the TARDIS powered down around them as they finally landed.

But the TARDIS continued to go dark.

"The soul of the TARDIS just vanished!" The Doctor seemed perplexed, and Lance tensed.

He loved the TARDIS, and he understood that she was a living being; her soul disappearing could only be bad news.

Carefully they all followed the Doctor outside of the TARDIS, the planet that they had landed on was dark and what Lance could only describe as a junkyard.

They had only been looking around for a few minutes, picking up some of the weirder stuff that was sticking out of the piles of junk when a voice called out, getting closer with each shout.

"Thief! Thief! You're my thief!"

It was a woman, with dark hair and a dress who tackled the Doctor into a hug, exclaiming goodbye and promptly kissing him.

Lance blinked in shock, but his attention was quickly drawn to the two people who came running after her.

The two people looked like they lived in a junkyard, which they probably did Lance realized looking at the planet that they were on. They pulled the women off the Doctor, but that didn't stop her for long as the Doctor asked her what he had stolen.

Her answers didn't make sense, and she pulled on Amy's hair a little before her gaze landed on Lance.

"It's my boy!" She yelled before she came at him.

Lance didn't even have time to tense before she was pulling him into a hug, but she thankfully didn't kiss him.

"Look at you my big brave boy, saved the universe you did, or is it will save? Doesn't matter." She pulled him into another hug.

Lance had no clue what she was talking about, but luckily he didn't have to do or say anything as the two people from before were pulling her off of him as they had for the Doctor.

It wasn't hard to see that the women was absolutely crazy after she bit the Doctor and then continued to try and kiss him again.

But then she said something about the little boxes, like the one that had brought them here, and he wondered if she was as crazy as she appeared to be, or if they just couldn't understand what she was saying.

She was talking as though she could see into the future, getting confused about tenses and answering questions that hadn't been asked yet.

And then she fainted.

They went to meet the House, and Lance would be lying if he said he wasn't a little nervous about there supposedly being Time Lords around here, they had been calling out for help, and the lady who may or may not be crazy had said the Doctor would be angry.

And it was never a good thing when the Doctor was angry.

House talking had been very creepy, and Lance was getting the feeling that the Doctor thought something weird was going on also because poking around sounded a lot like the Doctor's version of spying.

The Doctor's mind was set on finding the other Time Lords; he was convinced that they were here and Lance could only hope that he was thinking clearly.

"You want to be forgiven." Amy put it bluntly, and the Doctor didn't even try and pretend it was a lie.

Amy and Rory were sent back to the TARDIS and just when the Doctor was going to try and find some clever lie to get Lance to go back too he shook his head.

"I've been around too long for those tricks to work on me Doctor; let's keep going."

The Doctor looked like he was going to argue but then continued moving.

When the Doctor opened the cupboard with the same little boxes that had sent them here in the first place, Lance knew for sure that they were in trouble.

As Aunt and Uncle came up behind them and the Doctor started talking to them, he remembered the words of the crazy women from before, and how the little boxes would make the Doctor angry.

She was starting to look saner the longer they were on this planet. They should probably find her.

After the Doctor was done talking to Amy, they went after the not so crazy women and found her in a cage.

"It's my thief and my boy!" She yelled as they approached her.

The Doctor was still angry, but Lance, while angry for the Doctor, was trying to figure out who this woman was and why he was her boy and the Doctor her thief. Unless she could see the future? Maybe the Doctor stole her away from here in the future?

But then she opened her mouth, and the TARDIS sound came out.

It was enough to convince Lance, but the Doctor was a bit reluctant to believe it, but it didn't take the TARDIS long to convince him.

The Doctor let the TARDIS out, and she was quick to pull Lance into a hug again, but this time Lance returned it, despite how strange it was to hug the TARDIS.

So this is where her soul had wandered off to.

Releasing him, the TARDIS was quick to go to the Doctor but did not pull him into a hug, or a kiss much to Lances relief. It was like watching his parents kissing.

So the TARDIS could see the future in a way, which was interesting but Lance guessed the rules didn't apply to the TARDIS.

But then Amy and Rory were in trouble, and the Doctor was off running, but the TARDIS held him back.

"What?" He demanded, wondering why she hadn't let him go with the Doctor.

"You aren't supposed to go with him you are supposed to stay here and talk to me." She told him.

Lance didn't know what to say to that, but the Doctor was already gone, and there was no way Lance could navigate back to the TARDIS by himself, so he stayed put.

"What conversation?" Lance asked her, not knowing what they would talk about.

"The one where you ask me how you save the universe?"

Exactly as she spoke, he found himself remembering the first conversation she had had with him, where she told him he saved the universe and found himself wanting to ask about it.

"I save the universe?" He asks her.

The TARDIS hums and spins in a little circle.

"I don't think I should have told you that my little Paladin."

Her answer only confuses him more.

"What's a paladin?"

She turns to face him.

"Do you know why I keep your Hammock in my control room, even after each regeneration cycle?"

The question throws him off guard, but before he can answer, with what he doesn't know because no, he doesn't understand why she keeps his hammock there, not really, the Doctor comes back.

Comes back without Amy and Rory.

And then to make matters worse apparently the TARDIS is dying, not able to survive long in a body.

Lance pointedly tried to ignore the fact that the Doctor calls the TARDIS sexy when he is alone, he really didn't need to know that.

Lance had never really been a car person, some of his classmates could tell you the make model and year of every car to ever exist, but he had never been interested in that, he had always been interested in space instead. So you could imagine that skipping cars and going straight to building a TARDIS without any compatible parts was a little out of his comfort zone, but Rory and Amy needed them.

He mostly was helping with the heavy lifting and holding things, but the Doctor and the TARDIS knew what they were doing, mostly.

And then it was time for them to take off, after a few failed starts they were off in a burst of light.

The trip was jarring, and Lance held on for his life as they flew in what felt like a roller coaster without any seat belts, only one hundred times worse.

They landed with Amy and Rory's help, and Lance couldn't help but sag to the ground in relief to have landed in one piece.

While the others were busying dealing with House, Lance was staying very close to the TARDIS. She looked like she would collapse at any second. And after House played with gravity, she did.

He managed to catch her before her head collided with the ground, and Rory the nurse rushed over to see if he could help, but Lance knew she was dying and the only way to save her was to get her back into the TARDIS console where she belonged.

House continued to mess with them, trying to suffocate them and other such things, before the Doctor went back to dealing with him.

There was a slight moment of fear where he thought they were going to be deleted along with the room they were in, but they were just moved back to the main console room.

Lance noticed that his hammock was missing.

Then, the TARDIS was trying to speak to him.

"Lance," It seemed like every word pained her to speak them.

"Yes, I'm here what is it?" Rory was still there helping to hold her up, but he grabbed one of her hands.

"Lance, do you know why I keep your hammock in my control room, even after each regeneration cycle?"

She had asked him this earlier too, but Lance still didn't know why.

He shook his head, and she smiled up at him.

"The Doctor brought you into my console room when he was still traveling with the blonde one. You were so tiny. There is rarely a tiny human around the Doctor." She had to take a moment to gasp for breath, and he waited patiently for her to do so.

"And then you stayed, you stayed a long time, longer than the others, and I got to watch you grow." There was wonder in her voice, and Lance could feel tears start to gather in his own eyes.

"You became so brave, and you look out for my Thief, my Doctor. So you became my boy, my brave little Paladin."

He still didn't know what that meant, but he wasn't going to interrupt her.

"I keep your Hammock in my control room, even after each regeneration cycle to make sure you know you are always welcome home."

Then, she was gone, fighting House away from her home, and getting to speak to the Doctor one last time.

From there the Doctor went about fixing the things that House had messed with, and Amy and Rory headed to bed, Lance following soon after.

He laid in bed, and couldn't help himself.

"Are you there?"

For a moment there was nothing, and then the planetary system turned on in his room without any prompting, lighting everything up in the glow of the universe, and Lance fell asleep smiling.


	10. Fear

The planet around them was burning.

Lance clutched the little alien he was holding in his arms tighter as a nearby house collapsed in on itself.

"Shhh," Lance tried to sooth into her ear, talking as quietly and calmly as possible. "It's going to be okay."

Lance wasn't sure if the little alien could understand him or not, but he figured that the tone of his voice would still work to sooth the crying child. It worked on his niece and nephew when they were upset.

Of course, they had been upset about not getting ice cream or having scrapes and bruises from falling on the playground, not having their home burn around them due to an alien race trying to take over the universe.

Still, it was all he could do.

Looking around him Lance determined that that coast was clear for now, so he stood pulling the little girl closer to his chest and started running towards the Blue Lion on the far side of the city.

The team had woken up that morning to alarms ringing through the castle and Allura screaming through the speakers, "Paladins to your lions! Galra ships are attacking a nearby planet!"

Apparently, a planet only one system away had been attacked by Galran forces. The attack had been unexpected and ruthless.

The Galra hadn't been looking to conquer this planet; the Galra had been looking to destroy the planet and everything on it.

Lance wasn't sure what the species on this planet had done to the Galra to deserve complete destruction, he wasn't sure the Galra even had a reason. He tried not to wonder if the Galra had merely chosen the planet at random, or if they had attacked the planet so close to the Castle to send a message.

It didn't matter now though; the Lions had reached the planet only to see it burning.

What must have once been thriving forests were now completely gone. Rivers, lakes, and even oceans completely evaporated.

Everything was on fire.

Voltron was too late.

Lance could feel the teams emotions, their anger, fear, and grief strongly swirling between all of them as they approached the planet.

"Look for any survivors." Was Shiro's only order given to the team.

Their paladin suits were made to withstand nearly anything, but they had to be careful not to stay on the planet too long, the filters in their suits would only be able to filter out smoke for about five hours before damage would start happening to their lungs.

So the lions started to split up, all of the Galra forces had already left the system, and they couldn't chase after them without leaving this planet, and any of its survivors, to burn.

And so Lance found the first village he would start to search and started looking for any survivors.

There hadn't been any.

Lance had continued on, finding village after village and after three hours of searching, he had found less than a dozen survivors. They were mostly injured or unconscious from the smoke, and he sent them back to the castle to get treated at the castle in pods that Coran was able to send to everybody's locations.

And now, he had found the largest town yet. In fact, Lance was pretty sure that he had managed to find a city. The entire thing was now mostly rubble, but Lance could see how the buildings had probably been built like skyscrapers and could almost imagine the city as it had been before it had been destroyed.

It was all gone now.

And then, miraculously, Lance heard crying coming from the burnt out husk of what must have been a shop at one point.

He had dug the little girl out of the building just in time for it to collapse, sending dust and debris into the air in clouds of smoke and large cracking sounds that seemed to echo throughout the former city.

Lance had ducked behind some sort of wagon to block him from the dust and debris.

It was an act that had probably saved his and the little girls' life, as only a few moments later a Galran ship had flown overhead.

Lance scrambled to turn his coms on and get in touch with the rest of the team,

"Guy's I just spotted a Galra ship fly over my location. I have a survivor with me; we are heading to the Blue Lion."

Coran confirmed what he said, it seemed that there were only one or two Galra ships around the planet, or at least that was the case according to Coran. Probably just stragglers, or Galra trying to find the survivors to take as prisoners themselves.

Either way, Lance did not want to attract their attention and was glad that he had hidden Blue.

So there he was, trying to cross the city with a terrified child clinging to his chest and to make matters worse, his oxygen filter was due to stop working any second now.

The child squirmed in his arms again, almost causing him to drop her.

He stopped, bending down so that she was looking straight at him through his mask. The makeshift one that he had given her so she could breathe was easily covering half of her tiny face.

"Hey, I know you are scared, but I need you to hold on tight and not move okay? We are almost to my Lion, and then we can get you out of here."

The child still didn't speak, and Lance wondered once again if she could even understand what he was saying.

The child started crying silently, and Lance could picture her lip wobbling beneath the mask, her face screwed up tightly in fear.

He remembered being this scared, only a few years ago.

Back before the war when he was exploring the universe with the Doctor and running away from danger, before he realized what traveling with the Doctor truly meant.

He remembered the first time he had nearly died, alone and separated from the Doctor. His only link to the Doctor through the ships comlink, as the Doctor tried to talk him through defusing a bomb that was about to explode only inches from his face.

That was the first time Lance understood true fear.

But the Doctor, the Doctor lived in that fear. And what the Doctor told him that day had gotten him through the first of his battles up in space with Voltron and all the way to here.

To now.

And now it was his turn to tell this little girl, this little girl who should not have to suffer this much so young.

The little girl who had lost everything and was so, so afraid.

So Lance crouched down again, feeling the beeping indicating that his filter was depleted and the non-filtered air was going to start coming through his mask any moment now.

"Hey, look at me. We have to get going now. But I want you to do something for me, okay?"

The little girl looked him in the eyes again, her own still shinning with tears, and seemed to sense the change in his voice.

Like she knew what he was saying was important, and she nodded.

"I need you to be afraid."

The little girl's eyes widened in shock and Lance learned forwards like he was telling a secret.

"Because didn't anyone ever tell you? Fear is a superpower."

He had the little girls' attention now, and she was no longer shaking in his arms, making it much easier to carry her as he resumed his task of returning to the Blue Lion.

His arms were shaking, and his vision was beginning to fog up, but he kept talking to the little girl, repeating what he was saying in his head as he did so like a mantra as he put one foot in front of the other.

"Right now your heart is beating so hard you can feel it through your hands, there is so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain its like rocket fuel. Right now you can run faster and fight harder than you ever have before! And you are so alert its like you can slow down time!"

Blue was only a few more meters away, which was good because Lances lungs were really starting to burn and couldn't help the coughing fit that followed his little speech. He desperately needed to get out of this air.

But the little girl was still listening to him, her large eyes shining as she looked up at him hanging on to every word.

"So remember," he rasped out as Blue's eyes lit up as they approached, and lowered her head so that they could climb safely inside.

Lance practically collapsed into the cockpit, only able to carefully set the little girl down before he was ripping off his helmet to get better access to the filtered air in the lion.

Pulling in big gasps of air he rolled over to look at the little girl who was similarly drawing in big gulps of air and looking at him expectantly, waiting for the ending of the story.

"Fear is a superpower," Lance finished carefully, helping her up into a seat and strapping her in safely.

"And it makes companions of us all."


End file.
